By Amanda Painter
With the Sun now in Pisces as of this past weekend, winter starts to loosen its grip and we begin the approach to spring (even if the weather doesn’t play along consistently). Right now we have a concentration of planets in Pisces, the last sign of the zodiac; yet it won’t be long before the sky’s emphasis begins shifting again, from deep water to the fire of Aries.
Friday’s lunar eclipse in Pisces is driving plenty of tension, as is retrograde Mercury in Virgo. Combined they present an unusual species of pressure, with energy seeming to peak and surge ahead (the Full Moon eclipse) and draw backward (Mercury retrograde).
Photo by Eric Francis.
These qualities diverge on another level — the obsessive thought of Mercury in Virgo, and the feeling sensation of the Moon approaching its full phase in Pisces.
The eclipse is conjunct Chiron in Pisces, which is adding a depth of sensitivity and the potential for getting soaked in one’s emotions. That peak of energy may involve making contact with some past hurt or shock, and it may involve making contact with some deep creative impulse. The two are related; that’s how most art is made.
Saturn and Neptune are now in their second exact square. Uranus and Eris are approaching their second exact conjunction. And Chiron, a meticulous, thoughtful energy, is square Pholus, a point that has the impulse of releasing pressure. You may feel caught in the mix of all of these.
Among the more impressive qualities of Friday’s eclipse is that it aspects Chiron and Pholus simultaneously, so you may not know whether to hold on or let go; whether to let it out or let it in. We are clearly in one-day-at-a-time territory.
If you’re a regular reader of Planet Waves, chances are you know your Mercury retrograde pretty well. You know that it happens roughly three times per year, and that it usually entails taking extra care over a variety of matters; mostly to do with finance, communication and technology. Mercury retrogrades are often easily navigable by following those steps, although each of these phases has a unique signature — and can still be quite frustrating.
I just couldn’t resist this reference: 1988 cult classic, They Live — a movie about hidden messages and unraveling the truth.
Mercury will station retrograde on Tuesday, Aug. 30 at 9:04 am EDT (13:04 UTC), in the very last degree of Virgo.
In other words, it stations on the Aries Point (the very next degree of the zodiac begins Libra, and activity in the first degrees of all cardinal signs counts as Aries Point activity). Yet another unusual quality: Mercury will station retrograde just two days prior to a total solar eclipse.
What that would seem to translate to is this: pay attention. Listen, record and remember — and, of course, don’t forget to make backups. Notice the subtext of words and actions, and where matters in your personal life correspond to the wider field. I’d advise that you keep an eye on said wider field as much as you can stomach without spontaneously combusting: not easy in the midst of election season, but quite possibly worth it in terms of the patterns or themes that might reveal themselves.
It’s likely the events of this week could lead to big changes, in the sense of the future being virtually unrecognizable from the past. You have the ability to steer this transformative energy in the direction of your choice. That’s an opportunity to watch for once Mercury is back on track; right now, you have the chance to ensure your choices are as clear and informed as they can be.
Eric has completed the 2016 Midyear Reading, BALANCE. We strongly recommend you get all 12 signs. If you prefer, choose your individual signs here. Photo by European Southern Observatory.
Dear Friend and Client:
In her 1951 cult classic Esoteric Astrology, Alice A. Bailey describes Gemini as one of the most important signs of the zodiac. If you took a survey, most people would probably not say this. It’s not Aquarius, of Age of Aquarius fame. It’s not Aries, of Aries Point fame. It’s not the ever-infamous Scorpio, and it’s not Capricorn, the Moon sign that Augustus Caesar proudly revealed about himself to assert how powerful he was, had stamped into coins, then tried to hide.
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Not The Star, not The Sun, not The Lovers, not The Brothers, rather, two versions of The World card from the tarot decks of Jean-Pierre Payen (left) and Jean Dodal (right). Dodal’s card dates from sometime between 1701 and 1715; Payen’s from 1713. What is interesting is that the symbol of the twins appears many times in the history of the Tarot, visiting several different cards over the centuries. The tarot is a living document that changes over time as it is reinterpreted.
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I think that AAB knew what she was talking about, and that it’s more relevant now than ever.
The astrological year begins at equinox, when the Sun enters Aries, represented by a ram. Aries is a high-initiative fire sign, which is a good way to get things started. Aries, ruled by Mars, describes the competitive nature of humanity, seemingly a necessity of survival.
The story continues when the Sun enters Taurus, represented by a cow or bull, which implies resources. Not so long ago, if you had a cow, you had an assured supply of food: you had milk and you could plow the fields. Taurus, ruled by Venus, also emphasizes the human obsession with beauty.
Then comes Gemini. It’s taken 60 days traveling through the zodiac before anything human shows up. And when it does, there’s not one person but two of them. They are not adults; they are kids. This is symbolism so rich I can barely write another word, but I will try.
The mythology of a civilization from which we’re descended says that the twins represent Castor and Pollux — the mortal son of Leda and the immortal son, respectively. Both were the brothers of Helen of Troy. Castor was the son of the king of Sparta, and Pollux the divine son of Zeus (who seduced Leda in the famous scenario where he manifested as a swan). These represent the (perhaps constructed, perhaps organic) notion that in each person, there is an ego with a transient life and there is a soul with an eternal life — or that all humans have a part of them that is immortal or divine.
Gemini, ruled by Mercury in traditional astrology, is the first sign associated with thought. I would propose that the first human image or concept in the zodiac is presented in a pair because it represents self-awareness. It is the human consciousness aware of itself as the other. If you talk to yourself, who is doing the talking and who is doing the listening? When you have the feeling of observing yourself, who exactly is doing that observing, if it’s you? There is a quality of reflexivity to the human mind, and that is Gemini.
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Castor and Pollux, also called the Dioscuri or twin gods. In Greek mythology they were brothers of Helen of Troy, the ‘face that launched a thousand ships.’ They brought forth favorable winds for those who made sacrifice to them. In astrology, Gemini is an air sign.
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It can manifest as self-consciousness, self-awareness, self-criticism and any number of other facets of relationship to oneself, including in modern terms the self and its shadow partner. Twin consciousness can also be a symbol of sentience.
But usually this quality is projected outward (for example, seeking validation of our existence from others). That outward projection is known as dualism — something that contains two essential parts, in this case ‘self’ and ‘other’.
We live with a lot of dualism in our dimension of existence. Just about everything we see bifurcates, or splits in two. The most significant splits are probably the divide between all that is human vs. all that is not human, and within humanity, male and female.
Yet these twins of Gemini are brothers. They’re both male. On one level, this is a reference to Castor and Pollux, who appear in the early versions of Trump VI of the tarot, which used to be called The Brothers.
According to Aleister Crowley, later occultists revised that card to The Lovers, depicting male and female humans, the pair-bonded couple and the most overt symbol of dualism. In most versions of The Lovers, there is a third and fourth party involved, usually cupid or an archangel, and a minister who is marrying them.
There are a number of ways to read this, including the idea that relationships don’t exist in a vacuum. As ‘sacred’ as many people want to make the ‘space’ of a relationship, it’s often a mob scene. Each lover or twin has a double; notably, one is ‘divine’ (the angel) and one is ‘mundane’ (the minister), echoing the theme of the mortal and immortal twins.
There is the usually denied potential for dyadic relationships to form a threesome (with Cupid, the angel or the minister — or someone having another lover; or with the birth of a child). There is the presence of ‘the relationship’ as a fictional third entity; the notion of the relationship being blessed (or cursed) by some non-physical entity; the idea that the church and God must somehow get involved in human intimacy (which looks like either advertising or more likely, a sly commentary); and a variety of other possibilities. Notably, those are from tarot representations, which are thousands of years newer than the much simpler zodiac representation of Gemini.
The essence of Gemini is dualism, and this property has a way of finding its way around. If the mind is dualistic, everything will seem that way. One thing that AAB notes is that many signs of the zodiac depict dualism. There are the two horns of the ram in Aries, the horns of the bull in Taurus (which doubles as the crescent Moon, the Moon being exalted in Taurus), there are the twins of Gemini, and the apparent yin-yang of Cancer. There are the scales of Libra, the double wavy lines of Aquarius and the two fish of Pisces.
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The Lovers, from the Camoin-Jodorowsky tarot. This is a 1997 rendering of the 1761 Nicolas Conver deck, also called the Tarot de Marseilles. Though The Lovers corresponds to the sign Gemini, the twins, there are often four entities depicted in the card.
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What she is suggesting is that at our time in history, the concept of Gemini is underlying all of these seemingly different forms or expressions of dualism.
If you study Esoteric Astrology, you quickly discover that a core idea of the philosophy is that all of astrology is about the resolution of seeming opposites. I am reluctant to call anything associated with astrology new, but I have not come across this idea in any version of ancient astrology that I’ve seen.
In classical astrology, the signs are generally considered independent working parts of the wheel, and the system is taken as a whole [note the existence of the Thema Mundi].
The signs are grouped in batches of three and four — triplicity being element (three each of fire, earth, air and water signs) or quadruplicity being type of sign (four each of cardinal, fixed or mutable signs). There are divisions like male and female signs. There are things that describe night and day emphasis (Saturn is associated with Capricorn at night, and Aquarius during the day).
But as far as I know (and I am open to being corrected on this), the first book where the idea that opposite signs contain one another appears is Esoteric Astrology. Said another way, opposite signs are not really opposite. They are part of the same idea or energy system; they contain one another. For this reason Patric Walker could quip, “Scratch a Pisces and you find a Virgo under their skin.”
The seemingly twin souls, or two people, or two aspects of humanity of Gemini seek resolution in Sagittarius, which is the sign of alchemical bonding. But in this, the cosmos has given us a little joke, or a clue. Sagittarius is the sign of the centaur, which is the morph of half-man, half-horse. Here we have an indication that the relationship of those twins is the animal aspect and the human aspect of who and what a person is.
Whatever the inner split may be, it’s a crucial part of the story of humanity, and we see it illustrated in Gemini. I have found that on a number of levels, the question to ask when strong Gemini is present is, do the twins get along? What is their relationship? Are they aware of one another? Does each of those hemispheres of consciousness know that the other one exists?
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The Lovers from the Thoth Tarot, by Lady Frieda Harris and Aleister Crowley, drawn between 1938 and 1943, and finally published in 1969. The card is directly associated with Gemini and depicts a same-sex couple getting married or blessed; nearly every symbol appears with a counterpart. Including two women was both prescient and a throwback to The Brothers (the same sex parties of the older card).
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In anyone with a strong Gemini element to their chart, be aware that they are likely to present one side to the world at a time, then the other. This depends, in part, on how integrated the personality of this person is. In situations where the personality is not that integrated, there may be a degree of unawareness of what one twin or the other has in some way presented to the world, say, for example, the night before.
So we have another image from Gemini — that of personality integration (or lack thereof). It’s been observed before that the human mind seems to have many people residing within it. There are many levels and facets of the psyche that are constantly seeking expression and are also in the process of integrating into one another.
Incidentally, that process is expanded upon and illustrated in Virgo, the other Mercury-ruled sign, and another sign on the mutable cross. [For those curious about the the Thema Mundi, note that when using this chart, the signs and houses shift by 90 degrees, creating an overlay between Gemini and Virgo. They are very closely related, and can function as aspects of one another.]
The Glossary of Idiosyncrasies
One of my favorite concepts out of Gemini is the idioglossia. This is the phenomenon of the secret language of twins. Not all twins do this, but many do — they develop an entire miniature language that only they understand.
If you’re trying to suss out the word idioglossia, think of it as an idiosyncratic glossary. I have read that they usually outgrow this at a certain point, like many things in childhood, but from the standpoint of symbolism and the occult, it’s magnificently rich.
It has to be pretty inspiriting to any linguists who are paying attention. For one thing, this points to the innate human capacity for language, a factor that is part of the story of Gemini, perhaps the chattiest of signs, and one of the funniest and most clever. The 3rd house, which in some astrology systems corresponds to Gemini, is the house of brethren, and as such, local matters, gossip, rumors and basic communications.
With the idioglossia, we have an image of the secret language of any two people — be they twins, sisters, brothers, lovers, co-conspirators, co-authors, co-inventors or any two people who are intimate.
This opens up space for a whole range of intimately shared observations, inside jokes and many, many adventures and facts of life known only to close siblings or twins — or people who emulate them. I love the line from the U2 song The Fly — “They say a secret is something you tell one other person.” But since Gemini is the sign of gossip, that telling one other person can spread pretty fast.
The Mercury Retrograde Phenomenon
Gemini is ruled by the planet Mercury, a planet that does something that no other planet does — goes retrograde three times a year. That means Mercury switches directions six times a year (three times retrograde, three times direct).
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Chateau de Avenieres Tarot mosaic at Cruseilles in France.
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This is the essence of the Gemini quality of mutability, or changeability. Not only does Mercury change directions, it often changes signs when it goes retrograde and direct.
In this sense, Gemini can be a chameleon, constantly absorbing the energy of different signs, accentuated by the fact that it stops and changes direction many different places along the zodiac. Indeed, sometimes six signs per year are involved, as they are this year.
Having Mercury as the ruling planet makes being or hanging out with a Gemini an adventure. It’s impossible to be bored. Intrigued, entertained, puzzled or frustrated — but never bored. There is always some change on the horizon.
And that change can happen quickly. One of the interesting things about Mercury, as opposed to any other planet, is how quickly it comes back up to a fast daily motion once it’s stationed retrograde or direct. It stops and changes directions often, but it never takes long.
As regards mutability, one of the older definitions of that property is that a mutable sign can act like a cardinal sign (for example, Cancer) or a fixed sign (such as Taurus). So this is another way that Gemini and its associated planet can embody many different feeling tones in the zodiac.
In the upcoming Mercury retrograde (from June 7 through July 1), the process starts in Cancer, then retreats back into Gemini. When Mercury goes direct, it will then re-enter Cancer.
All three Mercury retrograde cycles this year bridge a water sign and an air sign in a similar way, indicating an integration process between emotions and thoughts, or between feelings and ideas.
That Glass-Bottomed Boat
There is a set of symbols, described in various books, that assign an image to each degree of the zodiac. The symbols were channeled in the 1920s by Elsie Wheeler and the Rev. Dr. Marc Edmund Jones, one of the founders of modern astrology. The original is charming, though my favorite version of the symbols is the revision published in 1973, written by Dane Rudhyar, called An Astrological Mandala.
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The Lovers from the 1986 Voyager Tarot by Dr. James Wanless. This is the deck that I use in my tarot readings associated with the birthday reports. Gemini — this means you!
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The symbols were channeled randomly. In other words, Wheeler, the clairvoyant, had no idea what sign or degree she was channeling for. Jones wrote the degree and sign of each of the 360 degrees onto an index card, shuffled them, and then without revealing the card, Wheeler would come up with an image.
The result is one of the most fun and intriguing developments of modern astrology, and the first borrowing from contemporary symbols.
I pay attention to the first and last degrees of any sign. The first degree of Gemini is “A glass-bottomed boat reveals undersea wonders.” Rudhyar explains the symbol in the context of psychology, saying it’s about “the revelation of unconscious energies submerged in psychic structures.”
He describes how the conscious mind, so often opaque, has become translucent, or really, transparent; one can see what is going on below the surface, even if one cannot yet make direct contact with it. Yet he suggests that a “new dimension of reality is perceived by the earnest inquirer.”
The last symbol of Gemini is “A parade of bathing beauties before large beach crowds.” It’s as if the symbol of inward gazing has gone the whole distance and been projected outward. The inner quest is being projected as an external drama. The bathing beauties have an intuitive connection to Gemini through the sister of Castor and Pollux, Helen of Troy, and that infamous beauty pageant that started the Trojan War.
Rudhyar comments that this is about the setting of social standards through personal excellence and competition. While in many ways the human story is an inward one, mostly it seems to be about exploring the world, and that is a fact that we need to address. The inward split in humanity is resulting in a state of nearly constant strife. The split in the mind, unrecognized for what it is, results in projected differences that go so far as to lead to war.
In a somewhat ominous comment on this last degree of the zodiac before the [Northern Hemisphere] summer solstice, Rudhyar says, “The show is over. Now comes the hour of decision.”
Lovingly,
Additional research: Amanda Painter. Tarot cards researched by Hillary Ghee and Elizabeth Michaud.
Note from Planet Waves FM to Musicians and Recording Artists
Planet Waves (ISSN 1933-9135) is published each Tuesday and Friday morning in Kingston, New York by Planet Waves, Inc. Annual basic subscription rate: $99/year. Core community membership: $149/year. Editor and Publisher: Eric Francis Coppolino. Business Manager: Chelsea Bottinelli. Web Developer: Anatoly Ryzhenko. Copy Editor: Jessica Keet. Research, Writing and Editing: Planet Waves is produced by a team consisting of Hillary Ghee, Elizabeth Michaud, Amanda Painter, Amy Silver, Carol van Strum, Len Wallick and Chad Woodward. Special thanks to the Fact Checkers List, which goes over each edition on Thursday night — and to our main astrology fact-checker Alex Miller, and Amanda, who goes over all their suggestions.
Introduction to Reading a Natal Chart with Eric Francis
Using our newly discovered (and amazing) audio conferencing technology, I will be hosting a class introducing how to read a natal chart. In this two-hour, limited-enrollment class, I will take you through the basics of how to actually read your chart, or anyone’s chart. The class will be from 10 am to noon EDT on Saturday, May 31, 2014.
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Photo by Danielle Voirin from Small World Stories.
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The cost is $100 for the two-hour live program, including access to the archived recording. (Note, this is an introductory price for Planet Waves members; future classes may cost more.) You may call in via telephone or Skype, or listen and interact via live stream on the Web. Voice contact is preferable.
Once you have the basics as I will present them, it’s relatively easy to get useful information from a natal chart. I will cover a few of the core ancient rules you need to know, provide you with two essential tools, then move on to modern interpretation techniques using two example charts.
Students should, at least, be versed in the most basic level of astrology — for example, knowing the astrological glyphs and most elementary meanings of the major planets. In other words, this class is good for beginners but you will also benefit if you’re an intermediate or even advanced astrologer.
I have been teaching astrology internationally since 1998, including at major conferences and at the Omega Institute for Holistic Studies. I am excellent at conveying useful, memorable information that you can put to use immediately, without reading any additional books. In fact you will wonder why books make it seem so complicated.
Space is limited — please sign up here if you’re interested. I look forward to working with you.
Sun square Neptune: Dream Big, Check Your Work
Through the weekend and into the Gemini New Moon on Wednesday, May 28, the Sun is applying in a square to Neptune. Any Neptune aspects call for clarity, even the most impeccable trine. Yet when the Sun is applying in a square to Neptune, that’s an invitation to be honest with yourself — especially when the signs involved are Gemini and Pisces.
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A long way from The Brothers — renderings of The Lovers from two editions of The Alchemical Tarot by Robert M. Place, a first edition of which is reputed to have sold for $2,000.
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That’s because these are the two most dualistic signs of the zodiac, having two distinctly different sides. Toss Neptune into the mix and we can have a hot mess of denial. Of course, denial is useful. Nobody could eat a hamburger or chicken wings without it.
But denial of oneself, one’s true thoughts and of one’s understanding of ethics — that can be a problem, the more so if alcohol or substances are clouding one’s perception; fogging the mirror, as it were.
Yet the Sun leaning into Neptune, about to be met by the Moon in a perfect 90-degree right angle Moon-Sun aspect to Neptune on May 28, is saying dream big.
Give yourself a push, and visualize what you want to do; literally see a vision for yourself. This isn’t easy with all the advertisements in the way, and the priorities of others that you might be trying to live up to.
The Gemini factor here is about mental clarity. The Pisces factor is abundant creativity. The mutable factor of both signs says that the combinations are exponential. Take nothing for granted. Check every fact. Focus your awareness and make sure you really consult yourself. Keep cleaning the glass.
Translate your ideas into words, again and again, until you get them tuned to the point that you actually understand what you’re saying to yourself, or to others. It’s possible to have clarity under a Neptune square, though it takes the conscious choice to focus your mind.
While this is happening, Jupiter will make an exact trine to Saturn on Saturday, May 24. This is the last of the Jupiter-Saturn water trines, and the last stage of the grand water trine that protected us during the cardinal grand cross between January and April. The three main elements of the grand water trine — Jupiter, Saturn and Chiron — are within one degree, focusing the visioning power of Pisces with the passion of the other water signs.
The Sun is currently applying in a conjunction (the most powerful aspect) to a centaur called Asbolus — and that is one image of focus, in particular of intuition, in a way much more specific than Neptune. This is rare and exciting astrology, as long as you keep your ears on and your mind’s eye in focus.
Looking into that Gemini Mirror and Reshaping the Dialogue
The sign Gemini is famous for its use of words, as well as the idea of mirroring that its symbol, the twins, suggests. Lindsay Bottos, a photography major with a minor in gender studies who graduated this month from the Maryland Institute College of Art, has used one modern-day digital version of the mirror — the selfie — to create art with a message.
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Detail from “Girl Work” By Lindsay Bottos.
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After receiving hundreds of cruel, anonymous messages about her art and her selfies on her Tumblr account, she decided this winter to re-take several of the photos and paste one of the hateful comments over each one as part of a work-in-progress titled “Anonymous.”
Bottos says on her Tumblr site, “Some new stuff I’m working on, I get tons of anonymous messages like this every day and while this isn’t unique to women, the content of the messages and the frequency in which I get them are definitely related to my gender. I almost exclusively get them after I post selfies. The authority people feel they have to share their opinion on my appearance is something myself and many other girls online deal with daily.”
Responding to the suggestion that selfies are just a narcissistic cry for attention, she adds, “The act of women taking selfies is inherently feminist, especially in a society that tries so hard to tell women that our bodies are projects to be worked on and a society that profits off of the insecurities that it perpetuates. Selfies are like a ‘fuck you’ to all of that, they declare that ‘hey I look awesome today and I want to share that with everyone’ and that’s pretty revolutionary.”
Whether selfies are inherently feminist or revolutionary is debatable; what isapparently revolutionary is to look honestly into one’s own mirror, rather than projecting one’s insecurities through anonymous online bullying.
Mars Direct, Sun Enters Gemini, an Interview with Relationship Coach Blair Glaser and Hip-Hop Artist Upgrade
In this week’s edition of Planet Waves FM, I go over Mars stationing direct, the Sun ingressing Gemini and making a conjunction to Asbolus, and a square to Nessus — a very unusual entry of the Sun into Gemini (explained in greater detail in the Gemini reading preview above).
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Relationship and organizational coach Blair Glaser.
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I cover the Sun’s passage through these minor planets, leading up to the Gemini New Moon square Neptune on May 28.
Then I have an excellent in-studio guest — relationship and organizational coach Blair Glaser. We talk about the theme of leadership and relationships, that is, how it’s necessary to cultivate and apply leadership skills in your intimate partnerships.
One of the themes we cover is how relationships must be given a purpose, whether it’s growth, pleasure, creativity, professional expression — something that provides them with a focus so that neurotic tendencies have less space to slip in.
My musical guest is Upgrade, whose new CD, called Chemical Imbalance, came out this past Friday.
I think that some of the most socially conscious music is happening in hip-hop, and Upgrade excels at this, telling the story of his struggle with mental illness and how music saved his life.
I am honored to have his work on Planet Waves FM, and he’s agreed to be a guest on the program in the near future. Please visit his website, order his amazing CD and give him a shout-out from Planet Waves.
Your Monthly Horoscopes — and our Publishing Schedule Notes
Your extended monthly horoscopes for June are published below in this issue. We published your extended monthly horoscope for May on Friday, April 25. Your Moonshine horoscopes for the Taurus New Moon published Tuesday, April 22. Moonshine horoscopes for the Scorpio Full Moon published Tuesday, May 13. We also published an Inner Space horoscope for April Tuesday, April 1. 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) — It’s time to update your files on a relationship. All year long you’ve been in a phase of review or reconsideration of an important partnership. The question phase is over, and it’s time to apply the things you’ve learned. The core question that it’s time to answer is, what are you doing in this involvement? You may decide that it’s productive; you may decide it’s not working for you at all; you may decide that the situation is workable and that you’re still committed to it. However, you need to know where you stand, and anyone else involved must know that too. This meeting must be on level ground, with all parties agreeing that the situation is fair and mutually beneficial. This is likely to require some ongoing, careful thought on your part. For example, if you decide that the situation is not perfect but is workable, then the details have to be worked out. If you decide that it’s not worth going forward, then an exit strategy must be negotiated. And if you feel strongly about moving ahead with the relationship, you still have to do some careful review of the history of your involvement so that you don’t repeat any mistakes going forward. Whatever you do, it’s clear that you need to proceed with full information and a solid commitment. There are significant challenges ahead, and you have the ability to turn them all to your advantage.
Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Your relationships seem to throw you one opportunity after the next to rise above your own nature. The world is constantly demanding a higher level of maturity, attention and commitment. Such is the nature of Saturn in your opposite sign Scorpio. This transit won’t last forever, it’s indeed challenging and I promise you one thing: you will miss it when it’s over. Saturn presents challenges, and it also offers the circumstances that you need to meet them. In that sense, Saturn is eminently even-handed, though you may not see it that way. Speaking in the more immediate sense, but also related to Saturn, the theme of this month is a focus on money. It’s vital that you rethink some recent decisions, not waste your resources and make the most of the situations where you are compensated for your work. It’s essential that you find the meeting place between what you’re good at and its value to others, and maximize that relationship. Make sure you focus your efforts on what really matters to the person or organization that is paying you. Remember that you’re part of something larger than yourself, and that your role is to contribute energy and ideas. Reach for a whole-system approach — also known as a plus-plus symbiosis, or the greatest good for all concerned. That’s not the way of the world, but soon we’ll have no other choice.
Gemini (May 20-June 21) — This month’s astrology illustrates an idea that’s dear to my heart: that self-esteem and one’s financial situation are closely related. I know that money supply is often blamed on the economy, and one’s place in life seems to be about how many credentials or connections one has. I think it’s much more obviously an emotional connection to feeling good about who you are, good enough to assert yourself to others and to excel at your work. This is one of the most basic measures of self-esteem — whether you feel you have a role in society. It also works the other way: the more you cultivate your talent and assert yourself as a gifted person, the more likely you are to develop those qualities. There are always ups and downs along the way, and dealing with them in a mature way is a significant part of personal growth. One aspect of this is being passionate about your talents, which means enough to take a risk on them. Then there’s one more bit. You may need to give up something in order to move forward doing what you’re best at. That might be your time, it might be some other interest, it might be a financial involvement or it might be an attachment to not succeeding. This is not really a sacrifice — in time, you’ll figure out that it was an exchange.
Hello Gemini! Your birthday reading will be ready Monday and is still available at the pre-order price of $24.95. Your reading now includes a live one-hour question and reply session with me, which is a chance to ask about your astrology. It also includes a tarot reading and access to last year’s reading as well, so you can check back and evaluate my work. On Monday the price goes up to $39.95. — efc
Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Use a series of rare aspects this month to work out conflicts in your motives, the ‘mixed signal’ phenomenon and other unresolved material that will come to your awareness. You will be able to get underneath the surface of subject matter you’ve long puzzled over, and psychic material you’ve had a vague sense of but could never put your finger on. This will key directly into healing modalities that become available, plus mentors or practitioners you encounter, who actually understand something about the nature of what you’re experiencing, and can actually help. Perhaps the most significant thing you should know about your astrology, and that is not visible on the level of the ordinary planets, is what a profound time of healing and learning this is for you. On some level you suspect this intuitively, though I want to confirm it for you as an astrologer. And I want to let you know how big this really is. I’m not just talking about healing; I am talking about you tuning up your entire system to be able to receive rare and highly specific teachings, information and what you might think of as galactic data. I know this is a bit more New Agey than I usually get, though that is what the charts say. And the next four to six weeks will be a time of focusing your learning patterns and opening up to possibilities you never imagined.
Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — You play a unique role in the culture, and this month your charts are describing that as a publicist for something weird, intriguing or that goes against the normal grain of society. It could be your project, it could involve someone close to you and it might also be that you’re going to be taken on a tour of all that dances to the tune of its own drummer. You’re likely to make some big scores or turn up a few gems in your process of exploring and experimenting with some aspect of culture. But you may not know what they are, so the idea is to be very observant and to treat everything as a potential gem. Doing this involves being more than a consumer or passive participant in the world around you. Think of yourself more as a cosmic talent scout, someone surveying new artistic or business territory, or going to unusual places and finding the most creative people. In these weeks you have the potential to cultivate or discover ways to increase your income, but there are two caveats. One is that you must be following your true calling. The second is that you need to be flexible enough to adjust and adapt to a continually changing environment. As it turns out, this aspect of life is one of your most adaptable, and where you have the most natural curiosity.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — Examine carefully your values as they relate to the spiritual and financial aspects of your life. They’re not really separate; indeed, they are inseparable except for an idea, and that is the idea I’m suggesting you look at. This is not an easy idea to translate out of the charts, but here’s my best throw. It’s not necessary to give up success to have some form of spiritual growth, or not in the way that you think. Western religion is all over the map on this one — some say that wealth is a reward from God, some say that one must give it all up to get any respect from God. But what does God have to do with it? Who is this mysterious authority figure making bold, sweeping and seemingly contradictory statements about what must be so? And why do they apply to you? I suggest you examine carefully the concept of sacrifice — that which you must give up in order to make something sacred, or to win the favor of God. Your charts in my reading reveal a passionate drive for something that includes devotion, creative passion, a visionary quality and the potential for monetary success. There are, as you well know, two ways to read nearly anything; of the two this is the creative, life-affirming one, the one where you come out the winner, in harmony with existence.
Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Yours is known to be one of the most laid-back signs, but you know this is an act. In fact you are one of the most driven and determined individuals you know, once you make up your mind what you want — and as long as you don’t simmer in resentment and regret, uncertain whether you deserve something. Now, you always have the option to hook into that, but it’s old, and it’s the very thing you’re trying to let go of — so I suggest you cut your losses, give back what is not yours, and move on with a clear conscience. If you have to make amends to anyone, do so sincerely and move on. If you need to apologize to anyone, do so and get on with your life. And one other thing: if you have to forgive anyone, including yourself, then integrate that into everything else you’re doing as part of the move-on process. Forgiveness is not stuffing something, or forgetting something, or demanding that someone take the blame. It’s the opposite of all these things, and though nobody can really explain the process, it does exist and it seems to be easier if you ask for help in whatever spiritual language you speak. The most important thing nearly everyone agrees on about forgiveness is that in truth, it’s not about anyone but yourself.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — In most of my recent Scorpio commentaries, I’ve explored the concept of fear, and the way your charts are describing how you’re working it out. The sum total of this topic is that the most poignant, threatening subject of fear is oneself. This manifests many ways, including as fear associated with dropping the charade and being oneself. It’s always fear that keeps the game of being ‘someone else’ going. It manifests as fear of one’s potential. Or it can express itself as the quality of needing to hide behind a barricade, concerned what will happen if you come out. And one of the most common, and for you debilitating, ways it can manifest is fear of your sexuality. All of the pseudo-conservatism we are seeing in our current era of history, and false modesty and intentional ignorance of biology, are all expressions of fear of sex and sexuality. This is especially distressing and debilitating for you because your sign is all about sex: the sign that in ancient astrology rules the sex organs, and in modern astrology one’s hormones, desire and the nuances of attraction. Because life emerges from sex, the fear of sex, in any form, is fear of life. You who want to be alive need to align with your desire and your erotic power, as if it were the cosmic gift that it actually is.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — Much that you could not talk about, or find anyone willing to discuss, is about to become a household topic. It will be up to you to make them a household topic, though you know it’s time for you and the people around you to speak in an open way about what is obvious. You can initiate the discussion gently, and you may be surprised to see that people respond. Seen one way, they are reflecting you and responding to your commitment to truth. Seen another way, they are tapping the underside of their own nature, and that particular aspect has more in common with who you are than it does with who they usually are, or think they are. Therefore, I would encourage you to have all the unusual, irreverent or taboo discussions that you’ve ever wanted to have. Get good at it. Find out how easy it is to lure people into revealing the truth of who they are, and use that information wisely. In one sense you will be looking into a mirror — but a mirror so clear, it will be entirely convincing that what you see is not a reflection. You don’t need to believe it’s a reflection — you can merely ask yourself how you would respond if what you were seeing reveal itself in others was, hypothetically, some aspect of yourself.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — This is your take-charge moment, though for the next few weeks as Mercury treks backwards through Gemini, I suggest you keep this fact concealed. Rather, work with people on their familiar level of the game, of the company or of society. Learn everything you can, about them and about what they do. There is a style of leadership (such as onboard a ship) where the captain must have mastered every single station, task and routine that any of his or her sailors must do. This is the approach that I suggest you take. As you do so, establish relationships with everyone you know who is doing those tasks and make sure they know you appreciate them. Once Mercury stations direct, you will then step into a coordinating role. Again, this will not be the ordinary kind of top-down leadership that our society seems to worship, leading to the $25 million CEO who cannot actually do anything. As time goes on, and you demonstrate your competence and skill by passing through a series of initiations or tests, you will earn the respect of those around you. Along the way, I suggest you think of everyone as your potential benefactor and supporter rather than as a competitor. This will be a refreshing change, and who knows, maybe other people around you will start to pick up on the idea.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — You seem to be having doubts about your power or your influence, and at the same time you seem to be tamping yourself down intentionally. This may be the best approach for the next few weeks as you work out some ethical issues that seem to be bothering you. This may be stuff that has been hanging around for a while, but which you’ve just been able to focus into a coherent thought. The question relates to one or both of your parents, which is why you can go for so long working something out that you don’t even know exists; it showed up before you were born, and you thought it belonged there. This would be a good moment to question everything you’ve taken for granted, any words of self-defeating ‘wisdom’ that any parent, teacher, caregiver or other authority figure ever delivered to you. One way to find such material if it’s buried is to consider any self-defeating thoughts you have and ask yourself where you learned them. They came from somewhere, but they will have little influence without your support and willingness to play along. It will then be up to you to teach yourself what is right, and to follow that teaching and see how it works. It will help if you gather others around you who affirm what you both know is true. There’s strength in numbers, especially for an Aquarius.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — This is a rare and beautiful moment in your life — especially if you remember that the best thing you can do for yourself is to believe in yourself. Have faith in your abilities and your goals. Know that you have the talent and the strength to accomplish what you set out to do. Trust that you have more than just enough; you have more than enough to make whatever happen. All you need is faith, and that is indeed a sign of strength. If you can’t muster that, then even the most basic modicum of trust in yourself will suffice. Tune into this on an emotional level, not just a mental one. Connect with the feeling of competence. If there are two sides to the argument, listen to both and choose carefully which one you believe. Most of all, allow yourself to feel desire and hunger for accomplishment. What you cannot do yourself you are capable of finding others who are loyal to you to do; be bold and ask for what you need. People will respond to your confidence, and this will create a cycle that feeds on itself. Your astrology portrays a time in your life when you possess unusual gifts, yet ones that are distinctly human. That is all you need to be, though I would add that most descriptions of what human means fall woefully short of what is possible — though the difference is almost always crossed by that distinctly human quality of faith in oneself.
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Dear Friend and Reader:
Mercury storm and retrograde have arrived on the East Coast with what seems like the new version of the Winter Olympics — how many winter storms can you cram into two weeks?
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Condition normal at Newark International Airport. It’s amazing there’s enough de-icing chemical to go around. Photo by Ted S. Warren.
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While it’s normal to have weather events during the winter, this has been a little strange, and it’s been disruptive. A combination of blizzards and ice storms have frosted the eastern seaboard from Georgia to Maine, resulting in disruptions to every facet of life since the Mercury storm phase began about two weeks ago.
This has been complicated by poor judgment calls in at least two cities, one in Atlanta during an event on Jan. 28, resulting in a civil disaster. Thousands of people were stranded on highways for up to 18 hours. Many abandoned their cars and walked miles home in a scene that rivaled something from a Stephen King novel.
Then on Thursday, New York City’s decision to leave public schools open in the face of an approaching blizzard created a wave of chaos when the city closed schools midday, forcing many parents to leave work in the middle of the storm and retrieve their kids. This was likely the result of the city’s new and inexperienced mayor, Bill DeBlasio, not quite knowing how to handle things.
NBC’s meteorologist Al Roker caused a fuss when he tweeted, “I knew this am @NYCMayorsOffice @NYCSchools would close schools. Talk about a bad prediction. Long range DiBlasio forecast: 1 term,” managing to spell the mayor’s name wrong. The mayor responded on TV by saying being a weather forecaster is not exactly running New York City; Roker responded on Twitter and this story became a focal point of the day.
Now as the temperature creeps up above freezing throughout the region, many areas will face flooding.
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Cleaning up NYC on Thursday night. Photo by Andrew Kelly.
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Meanwhile, thousands of flights have been canceled, a situation that ripples out across the entire air travel system as equipment is stranded in snowed-in cities and arriving flights have to be diverted elsewhere.
While it may be difficult to make a causal connection between Mercury retrograde and these events, they are happening at the same time.
That is astrology — it’s always about a combination of celestial factors and mundane ones, and their results — in this case, disruptions to transportation and commerce, two Mercury-ruled areas of life.
Meanwhile, the West Coast of the United States is still facing a serious drought. This goes back at least to last July and is just starting to be acknowledged outside the region in a meaningful way. Many cities are on water rationing and it’s unclear how the Central Valley of California is going to keep producing so much of the food that the country depends on, if these conditions persist.
There were some rainstorms in Northern California earlier this month, but not enough to make a difference. This is all part of a pattern of extreme weather events that are happening in many parts of the world, which technology has little power to solve.
Metaphors of the Aquarius Age
Tonight is the Leo Full Moon, and I have some thoughts about that. But first, while the Sun is still in Aquarius, a comment on the Age of Aquarius.
No two astrologers will agree on when this begins (or began). But we are definitely at the cusp of the (prior) Pisces age and the (forthcoming) Aquarius age. Evidence of the Pisces age still having its effects is that belief trumps reason. Denial is still considered a viable way of life. If someone mentions the cost of this perspective, more denial is the supposed answer.
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Illustration by Lizanne Webb.
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Evidence of the Aquarius age involves patterns. Once a pattern is established, it’s very difficult to get out of it. Pattern makers such as advertisers and people who create political memes know this. Notice how everyone with some power interest tries to crystallize a pattern. That is the main virtue of Aquarius and also its most serious problem.
More evidence is that technology is creating our society faster than we create it, and faster than we can create ourselves. That too is a pattern. Apropos of Aquarius, this is reaching into our personal relationships and group dynamics. Whole generations of people are being raised who would rather text than talk, and who are too intimidated by other people to have a real conversation.
One reason we have to watch this pattern-crystallization thing is that it can create situations that don’t work, where the only solution is a collapse of some kind.
This is why there’s always talk of systems breakdown. The systems we create are generally not flexible enough to accommodate much change, so we naturally assume that they will build momentum and energy and collapse under their own weight.
This includes mental systems — thought patterns, habits and so on. And with the Full Moon in Leo opposing a cluster of planets in late Aquarius, many people are feeling this in some form now. It might be manifesting as the need to change; or as the sensation of imminent change; it might feel like a fear that you must change, but there’s nothing you can do about it.
Or you might have the feeling that if you change one thing, you will have to change everything else (that, by the way, is a vast culture-wide theme).
Mercury, Sun, Nessus in Aquarius
Mercury is retrograde. That started one week ago in early Pisces. Mercury has now retrograded back into Aquarius, where it’s about to make a triple conjunction, with the Sun and with a centaur planet called Nessus.
Nessus has been in Aquarius since 2005, and this is the year when it begins its transition into Pisces. For this Full Moon, however, we have Mercury and the Sun conjunct Nessus, opposed by the Moon.
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Illustration by Lizanne Webb.
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Think of the combination of factors in Aquarius as some strange sequence of events putting stress on a complex system.
Once only dealt with by electrical engineers and science fiction authors, we are now all basically supervising complex systems, to the point where we require sophisticated computers to keep up with our correspondence and maintain our schedules.
And many people experience lives so complex, they seem to be on the brink of a system collapse at any moment. Do you have that sensation of waiting for the one thing that will push the whole system too far?
One thing about Nessus is that it addresses the theme of consequences. Nessus can be a study of causes and effects. In Aquarius, we have the theme of group dynamics. Nessus plus Aquarius can seem cold and impersonal — and then all of a sudden, Mercury and the Moon get into the act.
The message here — if you are feeling overwhelmed, pause and examine your options. Get a sense of your time constraints (an Aquarius factor, accentuated by a square to Saturn) and work within them.
Notice the ways in which you may be locked into thought patterns. If you’re experiencing fear, then start to uncouple your thoughts from one another, break the issues down and take them one at a time.
You want to get synergy on your side. That’s the principle of “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” But sometimes you have to take the parts one by one and see what they’re really about before you can see the whole scenario for what it is.
And if you find yourself up in the middle of the night, do something creative with your technology.
Lovingly,
Section Writing and Editing Credits: News items below are written and edited by a team consisting of Hillary Conary, Anne Craig, Eric Francis, Elizabeth Michaud, Amanda Painter, Susan Starr, Chad Woodward and Carol van Strum. Coordinating Editor: Elizabeth Michaud. Page assembled and coded by Anatoly Ryzhenko. Special thanks to the Fact Checkers List, which goes over each edition on Thursday night — and to our main astrology fact-checker Alex Miller, and Amanda, who goes over all their suggestions. Our editions are also proofread and fact-checked by Jessica Keet.
Remembering Three Pioneers Who Changed the World
The world lost three remarkable pioneers this week: Stuart Hall, 82; Shirley Temple Black, 85; and Sid Caesar, 91. Each made an indelible mark on our culture and will remain icons in their own individual ways.
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Stuart Hall. Photo by Dawoud Bey, 1998.
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Born in Jamaica on Feb. 3, 1932, Stuart Hall grew up in the colonial West Indies, where the society’s racial inequality profoundly affected him. This influenced his groundbreaking career in cultural studies and sociology after attending Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship.
Hall was one of the founders of the New Left, a term used to describe the activists and theorists of the 1960s and 1970s who demanded reform on social and class roles. His studies examined the links between cultural identity, race and ethnicity.
Hall said in an interview, “We always supposed, really, something would give us a definition of who we really were; our class position, or our national position, or our geographic origins, or where our grandparents came from. And I don’t think any one thing, any longer, will tell us who we are.”
Hall’s Aquarius Sun is in exact conjunction with Mars, symbolizing a philosophical warrior fighting for equal rights. Aquarius is an intellectual air sign strongly attuned with individual freedom of expression. With his Sun and Mars working together for these strongly held values, he was a powerful figure for the ideals of democracy: brotherhood, fraternity and liberty.
Another Rocky Week for Republicans
After struggling to unite Republicans on a demand they could attach to a debt ceiling increase bill, House Majority Leader John Boehner fell back on allowing a clean resolution to pass with the minimum required number of Republicans voting for it. In doing so, he averted a replay of last fall’s fiscal showdown, going against the wishes of his own caucus, and abandoning the so-called ‘Boehner Rule’ that any debt limit increase be tied to equal spending cuts. Far-right voices redoubled their calls for his head on a platter.
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Traffic study or political revenge? Either way, not a good week to be a Republican. Photo by Carlo Allegri.
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It was left to Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz to filibuster the bill in the Senate. But there would be no Green Eggs and Ham served this time around. Minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) called for a cloture vote that ended the filibuster and allowed the Senate to pass the resolution 55-43, thereby giving Tea Partiers yet another villain to vilify.
Failure to pass a debt ceiling increase by the end of February could have put the U.S. in default, which most experts believe would wreak considerable havoc on financial markets both here and abroad. The nation will now be able to keep paying its bills through March 2015, and Tea Partiers — and all Senate Republicans — can continue to campaign on having opposed the increase.
West Virginia’s Chiron Return: Another Spill
Barely one month after a Jan. 9 chemical spill rendered the water supply toxic for more than 300,000 residents of West Virginia, a second toxic spill (this time of coal slurry) has poisoned another creek in the same county. Apparently this is what it looks like when a state has its Chiron return with Chiron in Pisces, the zodiac’s ‘ocean’ — although as usual, the leaders of industry (and by extension, government) seem to be slow to awaken to the truth of this healing crisis.
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Surely there are better ways to show one’s pride than by polluting where one works. Image: WDTV.
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In this most recent spill, more than 100,000 gallons of coal slurry poured into Fields Creek Tuesday from a Patriot Coal processing facility in eastern Kanawha County, blackening at least six miles of the stream and making it into the larger Kanawha River. The company that manages the Kanawha Valley Water Treatment Plant claimed in a statement Tuesday that this leak would not affect the local water supply.
That is minimal comfort given the “significant environmental impact” of the coal slurry spill. And that is on top of the continued presence of a licorice-like smell — the telltale sign of the previous chemical spill — in the drinking water for area residents.
The local government may have lifted the ban on tap water use following last month’s massive leak of the barely studied chemical MCHM into the Elk River, but more questions than answers persist in the minds of most residents. MCHM has barely been studied; plus it was revealed recently that a second chemical, propylene glycol phenyl ether (PPH), was also leaking at the same Freedom Industries storage facility in January.
New Zealanders Seek Court Action on GM Pine Trees
New Zealand’s Environment Court upheld last week the Bay of Plenty government’s right to include precautionary wording against genetic modification in its regional policy statement. The regional government, along with NZ environmental groups, brought the action due to concern over outdoor experiments using GM pine trees. The Bay of Plenty is a region on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand.
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The stump of a GMO pine sapling after activists destroyed 375 radiata pines at Scion’s research site in Rotorua, New Zealand, in April 2012. Image: video still.
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Scion, a NZ Crown Research Institute, has been involved in risky outdoor experimentation with genetically engineered pine trees in Rotorua, a district within the Bay of Plenty region, according to the Bay of Plenty Regional Council (BOPRC), one of the groups trying to ban all outdoor GM activity. Scion opposed the precautionary wording in the regional policy statement.
Scion originated in 1947 as part of the New Zealand Forest Service, and changed its name in 2005. The institute conducts research and science and technology development in the areas of forestry, wood products, wood-derived materials and other biomaterials.
The BOPRC cited serious risks of transgenic pollution from Scion’s GE pine tree experiments, in which pine pollen can spread hundreds of miles even at moderate wind speeds.
Environmental organizations in New Zealand contend that the central government has failed to correct serious deficiencies in the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (HSNO) Act and therefore regional policy statements such as this one provide an additional layer of regulation against outdoor use of GMOs.
No Flu Shot? Just Pucker Up!
Are we naturally attracted to kissing people with ‘opposing’ immune systems, to balance out what we lack? That is possible according to some scientists. And kissing benefits our immune systems in some other fun ways, according to a blog post by Kate Bartolotta.
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Photo by Eric Francis.
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As clinical as trading small amounts of germs sounds, it seems that kissing can boost your immune system if the dose of germs is low. More classically pleasant is the fact that kissing elevates your serotonin levels (the hormone that increases feelings of happiness and wellbeing) and decreases your cortisol levels (the ‘stress hormone’). Heck, even just thinking about being kissed gets our saliva flowing, which helps reduce plaque on our teeth.
Feel like getting even more cerebral about it? Researcher Sheril Kirshenbaum says that we engage five out of our twelve sets of cranial nerves when we kiss — partly a result of all the nerve endings in our super-sensitive (and sensuous) lips, and their proximity to other sense organs (nose, tongue). All those electrical impulses trigger a release of dopamine. That’s part of the ‘natural high’ so many people crave with love and sex, but minus the crash that comes with cocaine (which also triggers dopamine production). Besides, kissing is way cheaper.
As Seen on Australian TV: Sex is More Fun Naked
Can you imagine if sex really was so accepted as normal that your neighborhood pharmacist could help you fit a condom? Or that you might tell your mom while you were in the midst of it? Hopefully this Australian commercial for Naked condoms, written and directed by Gary Eck, is showing us the not-too-distant future. Happy Valentine’s Day — whether you’ll be using a condom, riding bareback or flying solo tonight.
This Week on Planet Waves FM: Tantra, The Beatles and the Internet
We have three presentations on Planet Waves FM this week. Eric Francis and Dan Sternstein explain The Beatles on Dan and Eric’s Music Hour, featuring the music of George Harrison.
In Eric’s regular Tuesday edition of Planet Waves FM, the topic is The Day We Fight Back, a direct action that took place Tuesday, as well as the chart of Aaron Swartz, who died one year ago. Eric also looks at the Leo Full Moon and Mercury retrograde.
In a special edition posted Thursday night, Mark Michaels and Patricia Johnson return to the program, for an extended discussion about tantra, intimacy and sex. Mark and Patricia are promoting their new book Partners in Passion: A guide to Emotional Intimacy and Longterm Love. Note, this is a 90-minute interview presented in one segment.
Have you ordered your 2014 readings by Eric Francis yet? The Mars Effect (our 16th annual edition!) has just published, and includes in-depth audio and written readings for your Sun, Moon and rising signs. We always receive a flood of positive feedback for these readings, and it shows just how meaningful they are. One customer wrote, “Every minute of Eric’s reading is worth gold.” We’re offering you a special package price of $79 for all twelve signs, available only to current Planet Waves members. Or you may purchase individual signs for $29.95.
Your Monthly Horoscopes — and our Publishing Schedule Notes
We published your extended monthly horoscopes for February on Friday, Jan. 24. Your extended monthly horoscopes for January were published Friday, Jan. 3. Moonshine horoscopes for the Aquarius New Moon published Tuesday, Jan. 28. We published Moonshine horoscopes for the Leo Full Moon Tuesday, Feb. 11. 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) — Avoid seeming full of your own power or making anything about you unnecessarily, especially at work. You don’t want to become the issue, whatever the issue may be. That would make it difficult to maintain any authority or discipline at all. However, factors in your chart are tempting you to keep the focus on yourself. If you are aware of this tendency it will be easier to address it; so consider awareness the first step. From there, I suggest asking people their viewpoint and listening between the lines for where they are coming from. Take all of this information on board before making any decisions. You are not under pressure to act at the moment, and you are on notice to make your decisions deliberately and meticulously. To do that, you need reliable data, not just hunches. Then you need to choose carefully when to decide and when to implement your decision. Till then, proceed slowly, and keep your ears on.
Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Be on the lookout for influences designed to confuse or disrupt, into which you might wander unwittingly. Actually, you’ll be able to see these things from a distance if you look up and away from your feet as you walk; then you can take some other direction. Speaking of, I suggest you refrain from discussing longterm plans with those who are not your actual friends. Without veering into paranoia, notice the strategies and agendas of the people around you, and make careful note of them. At the moment, you’re susceptible to negative influences, and the ideas of those whose faith in themselves has been injured can have an impact on you. I suggest, therefore, you focus on spending time with people whose viewpoint is creative and positive — who are doing life-affirming things and who strive to include others rather than compete with them. Elitism has its appeal, but it turns out to be toxic. Thankfully, there are alternatives.
Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Mercury has retrograded back into Aquarius, which has taken some of the pressure off of a professional situation that seemed like it might run out of control. I suggest you remember (rather than forget) what you learned during the past week or so. The situation or something like it is bound to surface again sometime in the next month or two, and you want to be prepared how to deal with it when it does. That includes knowing what to do with those who play fast and loose with the truth, those who deceive in order to gain position and reputation and those who wear so much makeup they need to dunk their head in witch hazel. If you want to be real, and if you want to live a life of truth, you need to be clever, and you need to use your considerable knowledge. And at the moment, you need to know when to make your move, which won’t be for a few more weeks.
Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Take initiative on a financial matter and you will be able to break an annoying deadlock. Don’t be deceived by how complex someone else’s negotiating position is, or by how rigid they seem to be. That is largely a ruse; it looks like at least half of what they’re saying isn’t true. Further, you can be pretty sure that someone trying to pull a fast one on you is presently dealing with the results of many such situations in the past. That said, stick to the truth and clarity of your own position. Don’t say you’re right — present the facts that demonstrate that truth. It’s likely that whoever this is will make some attempt to distract or divert you, but simply stick to the simple reality of the situation. As far as timing is concerned, present your viewpoint that this is an immediate matter, then give anyone else involved until Feb. 28 to respond with the appropriate action.
Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — Avoid doom and gloom, worst-case scenario thinking — or at least be aware if such thoughts are dancing through your mind. That will help you choose something else. You are picking up on something larger than you, much larger, something present on a planetary scale. This is true no matter how personal it may feel. Yet on the personal level there is plenty you can do, in addition to monitoring your own mind and addressing any boundary breaches (whether by someone else, or by you) as soon as possible. Maintain your personal integrity, for one thing, both setting an example to others and holding them to a basic minimum. At the same time, be conscious of your use of technology, remembering that all these gadgets that surround us are sold as toys but in fact are tools that can do harm as well as good. Remember that as you use them and you will be doing your part to solve a much larger problem.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — You may feel like you’re under some pressure that you don’t understand and cannot identify the source of. This may be showing up as you feeling like you have more problems than you’ll ever be able to solve. I suggest you avoid ‘fix it’ mode, whatever form that may take. The thing to do first is to observe, and the thing to observe first is your mind and its patterns and thought forms. This is the origin of the situation. You are in one of those spaces where your thoughts are creating what seems to be your reality. This is often the case, though it’s not usually as obvious as it is now. Consider yourself on an expedition to find some deception that you were pressured into believing as a child, or that was given to you as an unbending truth. Once you get to that core false idea, you will be able to see how influential it is — and then make a decision what to do about that.
Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — We live on a lonely planet — one inhabited by more than seven billion people. That being the case, the loneliness must be a product of consciousness, regulated by a diversity of internal factors. Most of those are emotional. One thing you’re in the process of doing is carving out more inner emotional space for yourself, which is closely related to dismantling the influences of early caregivers and family patterns that you know have locked you into a kind of crypt. You are, stone by stone, feeling by feeling, dismantling this inner environment. The thing to remember is how this is bigger than you. It’s about what was done to you, and the ways in which the distant past was imposed on you without your having a choice in the matter. Now you are discovering that you do have a choice, but that discovery is coming at a cost. The cost is going through the feelings, recognizing your situation and taking appropriate action.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Friday and this weekend you get a clear line of sight on some of the material that’s going to come up when Mars stations retrograde on March 1. The information will come across more as an FYI than a warning; more of a ‘to do’ list rather than a ‘do or die’ list. You have time to clear many small matters off of your agenda before Mars stations retrograde, so that you can focus on the more important things when the time comes. Much of what you will be focusing on through the duration of the retrograde are matters of mental and psychological balance. This is what’s called inner work. I suggest you set your life up to accommodate this, as much as possible. I know it’s difficult to have time for anything, though from the look of your charts, you will be drawn into handling some of the deeper issues that have taken up residence in your life, and if you focus on them you will be able to make some adjustments and grow through them. The sooner you start the better.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — Jupiter, the official Sagittarius planet, is holding a long opposition to Pluto right now. It’s in a very strong sign, indeed, one of its favorites (Cancer), but being at the end of a long retrograde can feel like having key elements of your life on hold a little longer than you were planning. Meanwhile the opposition to Pluto is putting a focus on the ways in which you must evolve in order to get where you want to be going, so there’s a purpose for the pause — that being your opportunity for focus. To me this looks like taking up the emotional issues, particularly over-dependence and your struggle with independence, in your relationships. What’s the history of this subject, how have you handled it in the past and how are you handling it today? If you are tempted to think that this is an inconvenient time to approach this subject, I would say as an astrologer this is the most convenient time to take up the subject matter in the easiest and most direct possible way.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Do you have the idea that others are acting like selfish, childish brats? Your chart suggests you might have that impression. You might be mistaken, however. I suggest you listen for clues how others perceive you — they may have the impression that all you care about is yourself. This is not a formula for domestic happiness and tranquility. As the Leo Full Moon builds and comes to a peak on Friday, I suggest doing what you can to avoid any kind of showdown, and instead, listen for common ground. The emotional space you share is likely to come in the form of values, your underlying ideas about what is true and necessary. I believe that most conflicts are superficial; so too are most differences of opinion. The solution to any seeming disagreement is to go deeper, below the surface, and see what’s going on down under the deeps of the sea. It’s another world down there.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — I have seen a fear dynamic play out in couples, in particular the fear that someone is ‘too messed up’ to be happy in a relationship. Part of that involves experiencing others (including their partner) as being balanced or happy in contrast to the problems that one is experiencing inwardly. This dynamic is pushed pretty hard in a time when we’re always being convinced that others are more perfect than we are (a form of glamour). And it’s challenging in a time when there are plenty of factors and influences we need to deal with. Yet in our moment of history, there is little inclination to get help with one’s personal material, and a shortage of resources when someone does want to get help. That said, how are you feeling? Are you managing? Are you devoted to your healing? And if you are devoted, how are you expressing that? Don’t go it alone. Say how you feel, and ask for what you need. Open up and allow in the love.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — Friday’s Full Moon will give you the gift of profound psychological insight. I suggest you apply it to your life, focus on the people you care about, and take in the information you need about what is motivating them. The chances are you will be right, and if you use that information, you will be able to make better judgment calls how to handle them. There’s so much crisis in the world right now, sometimes it seems like only a Pisces could look at it and not look away. Part of why you have this insight is because you’ve been compelled by various factors to get to know yourself in an unusually deep way. Yet most people squander this knowledge. I suggest you remember that Knowing Thyself is the most significant prerequisite for being able to function in the world, and for helping others. You have to do less than you think. Right now as the Full Moon peaks, I suggest you keep your focus inward, and seek ever-deeper self-understanding. You will have occasions to put that knowledge to the test.
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Dear Friend and Reader:
Three or four times a year, everyone who knows something about astrology goes through a ritual called Mercury retrograde. Everyone who doesn’t know about astrology gets to have the experience, not sure what it is though perhaps suspecting that something weird is going on.
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The Path of My Soul. Illustration by Nina Gabriel.
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We are now approaching the first of four Mercury retrogrades spanning between early February 2014 and early February 2015. The upcoming retrograde begins Feb. 6 with Mercury in Pisces and ends on Feb. 28 with Mercury in Aquarius. What I call the echo phase and what other astrologers call the shadow phase began Jan. 22. The after-retrograde echo phase begins when Mercury stations direct and runs through March 20.
Typically the retrograde itself lasts three weeks, but the whole process — wherein Mercury is dancing around approximately the same 15 degrees of the zodiac, lasts for two months. Hence, while Mercury is retrograde just 19% of the time, the retrograde effect can be felt about half the time. It’s the most concentrated around the days when Mercury changes direction. These are called the stationary points, or stations retrograde and direct.
Associated with lost keys, late or lost payments, disk drive failures and communication mishaps, Mercury retrograde does not have a very good reputation. Yet some people love it — if you’re the creative type, or if you have a slightly tweaky mind, if you like the feeling of swimming against the current, you might be one of the people who looks forward to Mercury retrograde happening. If you’re very sensitive to it for whatever reason, you might take a more cautious approach. Other people seem impervious to it, like it’s not even happening or has no effects. By now you probably know where you stand with this.
Every Mercury retrograde has its own unique pattern, and little clusters of three retrograde events tend to have similar themes as well. Each will influence your personal chart in a distinctive way. In 2014, all of the retrogrades start early in water signs, then track back into air signs. That describes scenarios of having some kind of emotional or aesthetic response (the water sign) that is then understood or analyzed (the air sign).
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Mind, Body and Soul. Illustration by Nina Gabriel.
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Thanks to the Internet, more people than ever know about Mercury retrograde. The idea is now lodged in popular consciousness as what’s likely the most familiar technical astrological concept. I just searched Google and got 405,000 results for Mercury retrograde (with the term in quotation marks).
Personally, I didn’t hear about it online. In my first journalism job, I worked for The Echoes-Sentinel, a gritty weekly newspaper in New Jersey. Flo Higgins, my first editor as a professional writer, happened to be an astrologer. She was about 65 years old, with long white hair and a fiery point of view, who had probably read the chart of everyone for 100 miles around.
The paper was part of a newspaper chain, the Recorder Publishing Co. Nobody believed in astrology, but we knew better when it came to Mercury retrograde.
Flo could, and regularly did, terrify the entire company with this one, sending the vibrations throughout the central New Jersey countryside, even getting the stunned attention of nerdy newspaper reporters trained not to believe anything. Nothing ever got into print, of course. The newspapers were too serious for astrology.
Mercury retrograde meant everything was about to go wrong. Flo was so convincing that even Jim, who ran the production facility and could take apart and reassemble a printing press blindfolded, had a paragraph taped to his office door, copied from Debbi Kempton-Smith’s infamous Secret’s From a Stargazer’s Notebook, warning everyone who visited:
“Don’t sign, don’t buy” is the usual advice for the retrograde of Mercury. I’ll explain in a moment why that makes sense. It’s also associated with things getting lost, electronic devices going wonky, and being dissatisfied with what you purchase. Communication often comes under strain when Mercury is retrograde. For someone with a scientific or logical mind, the question is: what do all these things have in common?
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Birds of Paradise. Illustration by Nina Gabriel.
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Yet there are more humanistic approaches to the topic. “While delays and misunderstandings do seem to happen, I’ve noticed a magical trend — that people and ideas return, for integration, resolution and more,” writes Molly Hall on About.com.
People returning to our lives out of the mists of time is one potential effect of any inner planet retrograde, one of their more mysterious qualities.
But what is this event really about? And how might it work?
Let’s start with Mercury, the planet. This fleeting little world, the one closest to the Sun, is associated with the mind, with ideas and with communication. Mercury is the messenger of the gods, and also the trickster. It’s associated with, as in it’s the traditional ruler of, Gemini and Virgo, two mutable signs (mentally oriented, flexible, a bit nervous). Both of those signs have signs opposite them that are ruled by Jupiter (Sagittarius and Pisces).
In modern astrology, Mercury picks up many of its ancient associations — for example, the messenger function translates to mail and telegraph. It’s associated with communication of all kinds, communication devices, computing devices, commerce and the flow of money (rather than acquiring wealth — that seems to be more about Mars). Surrounded as we are by all of these devices, and nonstop messaging, and by financial instruments (such as debit cards) that are morphed with communication devices (such as the World Wide Web), we have given Mercury a lot of power in our lives.
Hence, Mercury retrograde is probably more powerful in our lives than it ever was. We swim in an ocean of things ruled by Mercury. Our consciousness is fully immersed in them; in many ways so is our identity. With the advent of handheld devices that go on the Internet, this seems to transcend economic barriers now more than ever.
In English the word mercurial means “sprightly, volatile, quick,” associated with the speed with which the planet Mercury moves, and how fast and how frequently it seems to change directions (that is the retrograde). It can have a sharp wit and seem smarter than you — Bob Dylan has been described as mercurial and he’s also a Gemini, one sign that Mercury rules.
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Fire & Water. Illustration by Nina Gabriel.
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Mercury is the Roman incarnation of the Greek god Hermes, and these figures show up throughout Western mythology.
In Norse mythology, he gets the role as presiding officer of the gods rather than as messenger — though of course that supposed role as messenger is a disguise for a much more significant function.
In Egyptian mythology he is the mighty Thoth, who was nobody’s messenger, or fool; he was responsible for the development of writing and science, maintaining the state of the universe and assisting with the judgment of the dead. Picking up on the ambivalence theme, Thoth was a mediator between good and evil, making sure that neither had a decisive victory in an ongoing struggle that continues to this day.
There’s also an association to the element mercury, or quicksilver, the only metal that is a liquid at room temperature. Mercury’s androgynous and liquid quality hints at a certain ambivalence. The old astrology books describe the planet’s nature as neither male nor female. Between metrosexuality and the LGBTQ movement, we have some clues that gender roles and relationships are coming under the increasing influence of Mercury.
It’s interesting that mercury the metal is a persistent environmental contaminant, and one that is known to interact with and disrupt the normal action of sex hormones. The element mercury is known to artificially induce androgyny.
Iron, Not Quicksilver: From Astronomy to Psychology
Mercury retrograde happens when the planet Mercury passes between the Earth and the Sun. Because Mercury’s orbit is about 84 days, this happens three times a year. While the retrogrades typically last about 22 days, there is a margin on either side of two to three weeks where the influences can be felt.
Mercury is not made of mercury. It has a huge core with a very high density, leading astronomers to believe that it’s made mostly of iron. In fact Mercury is believed to have the highest iron content of any planet in the Solar System.
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Over the Rainbow. Illustration by Nina Gabriel.
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This is all another way of saying Mercury retrograde means a huge magnet passes between the Earth and the Sun, making its closest pass to our planet at the same time. This may explain why devices act weird, but I think that it also helps explain why the mind gets wonky, such as the tendency to lose things, or to perceive problems as being worse than they are — the nervous system runs on electricity. The mind is a device that is, at least on the physical plane, rooted in electricity and magnetism.
In my view, the effects of the retrograde are evenly distributed between a perceptual event and one in the world outside the mind. The combined interaction is powerful, the more so for not being easily discernible as a reality or as an effect of the mind. A purely mental phenomenon seems to be associated with a Mercury retrograde effect, so notice how your mind is handling problems or puzzles when they arrive. I have observed that the approach to a problem really does suggest whether and how that problem will be solved.
With the space remaining I will pass along, in summary form, some of what I have learned about Mercury retrograde. I don’t mean what I have learned from books — I mean what I have observed tracking, experimenting with and doing consulting about every Mercury retrograde since 1994, and some going back to 1987.
I agree with “don’t sign, don’t buy.” That is, when you can avoid doing so. I have experimented with making purchases during or near Mercury retrogrades. Most of the time it turns out I don’t need or don’t use what I purchased. Sometimes it does not work, works strangely or does not do what I intended it to do. So I divide my life into times when I buy things and times when I
don’t.
I will usually (as in 99% of the time) make major purchases only with Mercury direct and out of echo phase. There are rare exceptions, but not so many. If you buy something during a retrograde, try not to be too attached to it, or expect a break-in period, while you work out the bugs. Sometimes things work out just fine. Really, most things can wait a week or two or three. If they cannot wait, be extra conscious of all the factors involved in the sale, don’t rush the process, keep your paperwork and make sure there is a good return policy. Choose carefully and get a good one, whatever it is.
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The Way of Mother Nature. Illustration by Nina Gabriel.
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As for contracts, it’s not always possible to determine when you sign your lease or make the deposit, but I have been known to make landlords wait for weeks before even leaving a deposit. (Hi Stefan!)
Plan ahead and use what flexibility you have. It’s worth finagling this to your advantage when you can. The operative events are the first payment and the signature on the contract.
The problem if you sign with Mercury retrograde, or about to retrograde, is that something is likely to reverse itself — an elementary illustration of what it could mean that Mercury changes directions. Or, you will learn something you wish you had known sooner. Which leads to my second point.
There are legitimate questions of what to do when you have a house closing scheduled for during Mercury retrograde, if you have to start a new job, or you get the bug to have that new car. I plan to write more about this; there are some basic approaches that can be applied, one of which is to understand exactly what is in the contract or commitment and not make any promise that you cannot keep.
If the situation involves significant amounts of money, a real commitment or the potential for a real inconvenience, it might be a good idea to talk to an astrologer who truly knows what they are doing with Mercury retrograde. [I can usually handle this kind of consultation in-and-out much of the year.]
The truth comes out when Mercury stations, either retrograde or direct. Mercury has a way of shaking out information, especially right as it stations. You can count on this. If you’re working on a mystery, or a riddle, or an investigation, or research, or trying to solve any mental puzzle, keep it going till the next Mercury station retrograde. Just to be sure, wait for the second batch of information just as Mercury stations direct. This is one reason you want to wait before signing or buying.
If an item of communication is missed, don’t assume you’re being ignored. Many people shoot off one email and expect a reply. With spam filters, busy people processing hundreds of emails a day and odd errors like emails not arriving, it’s better to give people the benefit of the doubt. Give people a day or two to respond, and if they don’t, send over a friendly one-liner to the effect of, “Hey I emailed you, just want to make sure you saw it.”
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The Music of My Soul. Illustration by Nina Gabriel.
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If communication gets dicey, pick up the phone. We are getting better at communicating online, but still, it can be difficult to relay feelings or basic concepts, especially with Mercury retrograde. The moment things get weird, such as if there is a misunderstanding, pick up the phone and clarify — before things get out of control or real misunderstandings happen. It’s better not to conduct arguments by email. It has all the sensitivity of sniper fire. Err on the side of being human.
Resolve the past, plan the future. I have found that the best use for Mercury retrograde is to tidy up what you’ve left unresolved in the past. Clean your desk, organize your stuff, contact old friends, go through your email and see if you missed anything important. While you’re at it, collect your ideas and figure out what you’re going to do next. Plot and scheme. Use the various qualities of the retrograde to refine your plan over time, then plan a launch sometime after the station direct.
If it may not be broke — don’t fix it so fast. One phenomenon I’ve noticed during Mercury retrograde is that things seem broken or like they are malfunctioning but are not really. Or, the problem is one thing but you think it’s another. Or, the problem is not as bad as you think. Therefore, before tearing everything apart, or spending a lot of money, or sending anything back to the factory, troubleshoot carefully and try simple solutions. Break out pure logic and apply that as a tool. Look for temporary workarounds and see if the issue resolves on its own. I’m suggesting you avoid solving a problem that doesn’t exist, or worse, making a bigger problem than you thought you had.
Always remember that Mercury is the trickster.
That means he, she or it can be tricky, and you need to use your mind — not have your mind be tricked. Mercury is a kind of a game. Be a good sportsman and keep your sense of humor.
Lovingly,
About the Artist: Nina Gabriel is an artist, poet and writer working from her home-based studio in Los Angeles, CA. She says: “To produce art is the most satisfying experience for me and the results of my work I would like to share with as many people as possible thus spreading my spirit far and wide. It is my sincere wish that my art and poetry bring peace, happiness and joy to anyone that appreciates it. I also hope that it will bring forth many positive feelings such as love, faith, confidence and truly all the good that life has to offer.” Visit her blog here.
Section Writing and Editing Credits: News items below are written and edited by a team consisting of Hillary Conary, Anne Craig, Eric Francis, Elizabeth Michaud, Amanda Painter, Susan Starr, Chad Woodward and Carol van Strum. Page assembled and coded by Anatoly Ryzhenko. Special thanks to the Fact Checkers List, which goes over each edition on Thursday night — and to our main astrology fact-checker Alex Miller, and Amanda, who goes over all their suggestions. Our editions are also proofread and fact-checked by Jessica Keet.
Inner Planet Retrogrades, One After the Next
We’re approaching the end of Venus retrograde in Capricorn, which happens in one week, on Jan. 31. Venus stationed retrograde just shortly after the southern solstice on Dec. 21, beginning the first Venus retrograde exclusively in Capricorn since the winter of 1802-1803.
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Mercury looks over his home planet. Image from Crystalinks.
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Venus will move about one more degree retrograde from where it is today, coming about one degree from Pluto in Capricorn. Venus stations at 13 degrees and 33 minutes — a degree position that will remain sensitive for a while.
Thirteen-plus Capricorn and the themes of the Venus retrograde will come into focus as Pluto moves into that spot over the next few weeks, where it will be for the exact grand cross of April 23. This gives Venus an honorary seat at the table for that event, kind of like Elijah at a Passover seder.
No sooner does Venus station direct than Mercury stations retrograde in Pisces Feb. 6, which will last through Feb. 28. Then the next day, Mars stations retrograde in Libra.
This close sequence of inner planet retrogrades will call for careful planning, having contingency plans for important projects, being mindful of communication in relationships, and careful focus on financial matters.
The Sun is in Aquarius
Meanwhile, the Sun is now in Aquarius, the sign of groups. The smallest group is that of two people, which is challenging because we are a society that believes in ‘majority rules’. In a couple it’s easy to have a split vote. Therefore, some form of consensus needs to be used, which emerges as a theme of the coming week.
The potential to clarify and heal some relationship issues is coming to the fore this weekend, and a simultaneous aspect may grant either the mental stamina to make real progress, or else the pitfall of stuck thinking. The astrology involves asteroid Juno (emotional needs, jealousy, desire for justice) conjoining centaur Chiron (awareness, individuality, healing) in Pisces.
This happens at the same time Mercury in Aquarius squares Saturn in Scorpio. Both aspects are exact Saturday. So we get a potentially complex emotional situation at the same time there is a stressful aspect influencing communications.
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Chart for Juno conjunct Chiron, concurrent with Mercury square Saturn. Notice that the Moon is conjunct Saturn, which could add the feeling of emotional complexity to a situation that is already seeking the level ground of trust. Remember, trust is emotional, not mental.
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Juno conjoining Chiron in Pisces suggests a possible rebellion in marriage — perhaps stepping out of your past relationship patterns and the emotional patterns that ground them.
It might also manifest as a healing crisis in the realm of the vision you hold for your intimate partnerships. If so, it might be that you’re recognizing that the old ideas you were given about relationships and marriage, starting from Cinderella forward, are no longer relevant to your existence.
In any kind of interpersonal relating, it’s one thing to hold out a creative, positive vision toward which to aspire. It’s another thing to proceed as if that vision is your current reality, if doing so ignores the ways in which one is still clinging to outmoded or self-sabotaging behavior models and tactics. Those attachments to what is not working anymore need to be seen and addressed in tangible ways.
The asteroid Pallas in Virgo is in the equation; it’s currently opposite Juno-Chiron, representing a kind of standoff. Pallas speaks to the strategy angle of the equation. Pallas is political in nature, and could represent taking a legalistic or warrior approach when such is unnecessary. Don’t overthink your situation, and be careful who you deem an adversary; what you want is a dialog that includes a balance of thought and feeling, and gently working through any obstructions you may encounter.
Mercury square Saturn, which occurs on Saturday in the midst of these aspects, speaks to the theme of trust, particularly trusting oneself. If you reach a block of some kind (an impasse, a mental obstruction, a sense of being emotionally jammed, or a block to communication), pause and take up the question of trust. You can only trust someone else when you trust yourself. That is the place to start.
It’s not possible to have a relationship that is actually loving, without actual trust. I don’t know how this gets left out of the talk about the birds and the bees, but it’s never too late to figure out.
— Eric Francis, with additional writing by Amanda Painter.
No More Uncle Sugar to the Rescue
Mike Huckabee unofficially announced his presidential candidacy yesterday when he revived the reproductive rights issue in a speech before the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting.
In his speech, at the “Lunch with Mike Huckabee” event, he described women desperately seeking out their next birth control fix, wanting the government subsidies given to them by “Uncle Sugar” Democrats.
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Planets from left to right are: Chiron, Juno, Nessus, Venus, Pluto, Ceres, the Moon and Pallas Athene. Not shown is Taurus rising.
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Here’s what would-be Pres. Huckabee said to his fellow Republicans, in a meeting that was open to the press, revealing just how much he knows about birth control and women’s reproduction. Get ready.
“Our party stands for the recognition of the equality of women and the capacity of women,” Huckabee told his audience at the Republican National Committee’s winter meeting in downtown Washington. “That’s not a war on them. It’s a war for them. And if the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control, because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it.”
No, The Onion did not write that. It almost seems like they did. It’s just as funny. But I don’t think the humor was intentional — unless there is a subversive on the speech writing team. Which is starting to seem like a possibility.
Not like there is anything else important happening in the world, for example Fukushima leaking plutonium into the Pacific, inflation rivaling the Lira, the planet heating up despite a chilly winter, genetically modified corn leaping out of your cereal bowl, chemical spills, ‘bomb train’ wrecks and political corruption from the ground to the top floor? No worries about wars and famine and the oil running out? No mention of banksters and Wall Street? Why bother with those criminals when you can go after women?
Huckabee’s presentation was scheduled for 12:30 pm Thursday. A few minutes ago, I gave up chasing employees of the Renaissance Hotel (where the presentation happened) to get the time he started, and went with the stated time. It’s a very interesting chart. Here is the relevant portion.
Note that the ascendant is in Taurus, 27+ rising. Centaur Nessus, which often reveals the theme of sexual and emotional abuse, is exactly square the ascendant (which is the horizon). Nessus is directly overhead when the event starts. Making matters more interesting, the Moon, significator for all things feminine, is conjunct Ceres, the planet of mothers and daughters, and it’s exactly trine Nessus.
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Video image of Huckabee’s remarks. Full video here. Sorry about the 30-second advertisement. Whatever it is, you don’t need it.
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So the combination is Taurus rising, Moon, Ceres and Nessus — all aligned to within one degree. It looks like this chart was cast by an astrologer for a good fee. Said another way, it reveals the Republicans’ disdain for women and total lack of empathy for the female human condition on the planet.
He simply does not get it. I am loathe to deny consciousness, but if he does get it, who is this message supposed to reach, except for a bunch of men who also don’t get it? Or a bunch of women jealous that some other woman might want to use birth control (i.e., be sexually active)?
The presence of Nessus is evidence of intent — and a hint that this is going to come back to him, as events involving Nessus almost always do.
There is one other aspect pattern in the chart — the Juno-Chiron-Pallas pattern mentioned above in the SKY section. Pallas, which addresses politics, is inserting itself into the deeply personal Juno-Chiron conjunction — intimate matters of relationship and marriage. Also in the same pattern is Venus, which rules the chart, about to station direct close to Pluto.
Do most women get it? Almost. This chart says: not all the way. It still seems like legitimate political discourse. Over time, and not much time, that seems poised to take a step in public consciousness. One last political note: the political argument against birth control is that Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court decision that guarantees the right to contraception, is the precedent for Roe v. Wade, the decision that guarantees the right to abortion on demand.
There is a political strategy at work here.
As I Live and Breathe: Water Vapor Detected on Ceres
Scientists have observed Ceres, the largest asteroid (classified as a dwarf planet), giving off puffs of water vapor every once in a while — conveniently giving the Dawn spacecraft another item to study when it stops by Ceres next year around this time.
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Ceres is almost round like Earth, suggesting it may have a rocky inner core, a thick water-ice mantle, and a thin, dusty outer crust. Image: NASA/ESA/A. Feild (STScI).
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Although the amount of water vapor being released is very small, it hangs around just long enough to create a modest atmosphere around Ceres — but only part of the time. Seems perfectly fitting for the planet named after the goddess of agriculture (among other things), in whose mythology we find the creation of the seasons.
The presence of water on Ceres has been suspected since 1978, when certain observations combined with the planet’s strikingly round size suggested that an icy exterior formed after the core softened and separated into layers eons ago.
According to Sky and Telescope, the team at the European Space Agency’s Herschel observatory, led by Michael Küppers, hypothesizes two possible mechanisms explaining the watery exhalations:
“The interior of Ceres could still be warm enough to drive a little bit of water outward through deep fractures. Or maybe the surface occasionally warms enough for a little ice to sublimate and escape, carrying away loose dust and exposing fresh material.”
Dawn will have two different instruments at its disposal when it reaches Ceres, fresh from studying the asteroid Vesta. The goddesses should be pleased.
Dirty Deeds: This Week in Corruption
While the far right wrings its collective hands over marriage equality and marijuana legalization, examples abound that an aspect of morality some may consider a bit more, uh, fundamental is being routinely ignored — that pesky bit about greed and hypocrisy. Profiteers are hoping we’ll all keep paying attention to Justin Bieber’s latest misstep while they quietly line their pockets. Here, for your outrage and entertainment, are some of this week’s examples:
As the Midwestern and Northeastern parts of the United States struggle through the roughest winter in recent memory, you might think it good news that propane production is at an historic high — even though the increase is partly a byproduct of fracking for natural gas, at least people will be able to keep warm inexpensively, right?
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Video still from The Daily Show gets the point across, with a nod to the movies — but you just can’t make up some of this stuff.
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Nope. Home users are struggling with short supplies and record high prices, largely because oil companies can make more exporting to other countries. Gotta love that Invisible Hand of the Free Market, especially when it’s pulling the blankets off you on a frigid night.
But systemic corruption is not just an American illness, or even just a capitalist problem. The Guardian reports this week that Chinese fat cats are equally busy plundering the populace and stashing the proceeds in offshore accounts. Meanwhile, 300 million Chinese survive on less than two dollars a day.
Systems, of course, are built and used by individuals. Cases of individual corruption tend to look stupid and mean-spirited in the light of day, as witness the indictment of Virginia’s former First Couple, Bob and Maureen McDonnell. The McDonnells are accused of promoting iffy health products peddled by a good buddy who happened to give them a lot of fancy presents.
At stake for ‘regular folk’ would be a million-dollar fine and decades of lost freedom — unlikely here. Although the indictment may sink McDonnell’s chances for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, as Dana Liebelson and Tim Murphy point out in Mother Jones, “If recent history is an indication, he’ll probably get a reality show.”
To end on a slightly lighter, or at least more ridiculous, note, Toronto’s conservo-fabulous and insanely libertine (how do you even be that?) Mayor Rob Ford slipped and fell back into the headlines this week. He was caught on video ranting drunkenly about his troubles; seems it’s everyone else’s fault. His reality show got canceled after the first episode this fall. Shocked?
And that, dear friends, is how they operate.
Time Takes Its Toll at Fukushima and Beyond
Fukushima Daiichi is not the only nuclear power plant dealing with problems. In addition to a new leak discovered at Fukushima, two operating plants in the U.S. have announced issues with faulty equipment in the past week.
News of a water leak in Unit 3 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant has surfaced, less than a month after the plant’s operator (TEPCO) reported steam seen rising from the same building. Unit 3 experienced a total core meltdown of used fuel containing plutonium.
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Radioactive waste will last a lot longer than the nuclear plants that produce it, as depicted in this viral image.
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Highly radioactive water has been seen pouring into a drain inside of the Unit 3 building on the first floor of the destroyed reactor, the utility said. The water flow was recorded by a camera installed on a remote-controlled robot that was being used to clean up rubble from the damaged reactor building on Saturday. The water is flowing toward the basement, where there is already a large accumulation of radioactive water.
A video of the water flow was released by TEPCO and posted on its website. As of Tuesday, the company released a statement stating that it thinks the water flow has reduced, and has posted an updated video.
In the U.S., two nuclear power plants are now dealing with their own problems. The Shearon Harris Nuclear Power Plant in Wake County, North Carolina, went offline last Saturday morning when smoke was detected coming from a transformer that powered the turbine. Duke Energy Progress, the operating company, said in press reports that no flames were seen and there was no threat to public safety.
This same plant was shut down twice last year by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal agency that oversees nuclear power. It was shut down once in May due to signs of corrosion, and then again last month because of a crack in the containment vessel that is supposed to hold in radiation.
Monday, the Perry Nuclear Power Plant in Ohio, alongside Lake Erie, reported that radioactive material had been found in the water from a leaking steam pipe. The plant says tritium was detected in a groundwater monitoring station, and they are working on repairing the leak.
This is the second leak of radioactive steam from this plant since the first was discovered in June 2013. FirstEnergy Corporation, the plant’s operator, says that none of the contaminated water ever left the plant and, of course, there was never any risk to the public.
Equipment malfunctions will continue to be a problem for the nuclear industry as power plants deteriorate with age. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average age of nuclear reactors is 33 years. A study done by the University of Munich reports that half of the 104 nuclear plants in the U.S. have been operating for more than 30 years.
As we know that radiation dispersed by nuclear power plants has deleterious effects on all biological life forms, it may be taking its toll equally on the buildings that keep its contaminants at bay. As old and outdated nuclear power plant facilities approach their decommissioning phase, a whole new set of risks and challenges emerge, proving just how dangerous and unsustainable nuclear power truly is.
‘Bomb Trains’: Crude Oil Transportation a Deadly Roulette Game
In the wake of the most recent major derailment of a train carrying oil from the Bakken shale, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and its Canadian equivalent have issued a joint call for stronger safety standards.
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A firefighter walks past a burning train on July 6, 2013, in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, where most of downtown was incinerated. Philly got lucky. Photo: Mathieu Belanger/Reuters.
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The latest derailment occurred at 1:00 am on Jan. 20 in Philadelphia. A 101-car CSX train was crossing the Schuylkill Arsenal Bridge when seven cars derailed, six of them loaded with crude oil. The bridge crosses both a river and a heavily trafficked expressway and runs through a densely populated area with two university campuses and a children’s hospital.
No one was injured and no oil was spilled — this time. But the same cannot be said of other recent derailments involving what crews have taken to calling “bomb trains.” A December 2013 derailment near Casselton, North Dakota, caused an explosion and intense fires. A 20-car derailment in early November sent flames shooting 300 feet into the sky over rural western Alabama. And what happens when derailed cars explode in populated areas was made horribly clear last July, when a derailment in Lac Megantic, Quebec, killed 47 people and destroyed 30 buildings.
Even without immediate fatalities, spills are environmentally devastating. Bakken crude is loaded with volatile toxic chemicals, and the railroad industry plans to start handling it like toxic waste. Meanwhile, early data indicates there were 400,000 rail cars full of the stuff rolling in 2013 and 137 “releases,” compared to just one in 2009.
The railway industry estimates that retrofitting the problematic DOT-111 freight cars often used for crude will take about 10 years. New safety requirements are expected to be published sometime next year.
Improved GMO Detection Test Released; Anti-GMO Law Challenged
By combining two existing tests for GMO identification, a Chinese research team has developed a comprehensive test that they claim is 97% accurate for “known commercialized modification” of crops developed up to 2012. They claim this test is twice as accurate as any other, and that it is expandable to include future genetic modification.
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Kauai resident Monica Arnett protests controversial GMO bill in front of County Building. Photo: Leo Azambuja.
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Welcome news to farmers owning conventional fields, who face the constant menace of crop contamination from windborne GMO seeds landing them in legal and economic difficulty, through no fault of their own and without much recourse.
“Despite strict regulations, unauthorized GMOs have been occasionally released into the market. There is thus an urgent need for high-capacity monitoring of GMOs,” wrote the research team, led by Li-Tao Yang from Jiao Tong University, China.
Meanwhile, in Hawaii, the residents of Kauai might be wishing for this method of “high-capacity monitoring” to prove their points in court. Dupont, Syngenta and Agrigentics Inc. have filed a federal lawsuit, claiming that the island of Kauai’s anti-GMO law is unconstitutional. The three companies collectively lease 11,500 acres on Kauai for test farms and research facilities. They grow a mix of biotech seed crops, including corn, soybeans, canola and rice.
The anti-GMO law requires large agricultural companies to disclose pesticide use, report genetically engineered crops, and create buffer zones between pesticide-sprayed fields and public areas like schools, hospitals and homes. Planet Waves last reported on the bill on Oct. 11, 2013; it was subsequently passed in November and is set to take effect in August.
Councilman Gary Hooser, who co-introduced the bill, said the lawsuit is an attempt to bully the residents of Kauai and maintain secrecy around what pesticides they are using.
“These companies do not want our county to set a precedent that other communities are going to follow,” he said.
Limitless
What do Mercury in Aquarius and graffiti art have in common? For one thing, both have to do with the eruption of some new, sudden expression of individuality in the midst of what has become solid, concrete and seemingly unchanging; yet those unexpected outbursts of thought and communication themselves crystallize into permanence as the paint dries. At least, until the next street artist comes along with a new idea and some fresh spray cans.
In “Limitless,” a time-lapse video shot and cut by Selina Miles and produced as part of a film series by spraypaint-maker Ironlak, four graffiti artists (going by the handles Sofles, Fintan Magee, Treas and Quench) are let loose in a massive, abandoned warehouse with astonishing amounts of paint.
Mercury may slow down as it nears its retrograde and direct stations, but the rest of the time it’s moving in fast-forward — just like this video, brought to you by the oh-so-Aquarian Internet.
The Mars Effect: Audio Previews and Featured Articles
This week’s broadcast of Planet Waves FM features an audio overview of the entire the Mars Effect project, in addition to previews of individual signs. Please give it a listen — especially if you have never purchased one of my annuals; the richness indicated in the previews is only the tip of the iceberg compared to the full readings. By the way, the featured articles in The Mars Effect, which have been written by about a dozen colleagues of mine on various themes related to the upcoming Mars retrograde in Libra, are free to anyone to read. Please check them out and let us know what you think.
Have you ordered your 2014 readings by Eric Francis yet? The Mars Effect (our 16th annual edition!) has just published, and includes in-depth audio and written readings for your Sun, Moon and rising signs. We always receive a flood of positive feedback for these readings, and it shows just how meaningful they are. One customer wrote, “Every minute of Eric’s reading is worth gold.” We’re offering you a special package price of $79 for all twelve signs, available only to current Planet Waves members. Or you may purchase individual signs for $29.95.
Your Monthly Horoscopes — and our Publishing Schedule Notes
Your extended monthly horoscopes for February are published below in this issue. We published your extended monthly horoscopes for January on Friday, Jan. 3. The Moonshine horoscopes for the Capricorn New Moon were published Tuesday, Dec. 31. We published Moonshine horoscopes for the Cancer Full Moon Tuesday, Jan. 14. Please note, we normally publish the extended monthly horoscope on the first Friday after the Sun has entered a new sign; Inner Space usually publishes the following Tuesday.
Aries (March 20-April 19) — Give partners and loved ones extra time and wiggle room to hesitate. Give them extra space to be self-centered. While you’re at it, give yourself that space as well; once you figure out you need these things, you’ll be more understanding of why others do as well. Over the next few weeks, you will gain a better understanding of where both you and partners are coming from. Remember that a partner or loved one’s lack of confidence may be associated with a memory that long predates your association. People will often allow their own past impressions to influence or even dictate what happens in a present-time situation. Ideally we would not do this, however, it’s more likely that the first step is learning to notice when it’s happening. This is the theme of the year for you — to know and understand the nature of projection, perhaps the most common psychological phenomenon. Projection is when you see something about yourself existing exclusively outside of yourself. As a clever writer recently pointed out, projection can only happen in the dark. So the first step is to gradually turn up the lights so you can see what is happening. The second step is to keep asking yourself what belongs to you and what belongs to someone else, and not to be satisfied with an answer till you have several points of documentation.
Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Venus will soon complete a rare retrograde (nothing of its kind has happened since 1803), which has taught you many things about the social conditioning that helped shape your character. One theme is the extent to which people who influenced you as a child were serving their own interests but tried to make it seem like they were doing you a favor. While this helped make you into the gritty and self-reliant person that you are, it’s taken a cost — and you seem determined to reclaim what you’ve given up. When the retrograde ends on Jan. 31, you may be left with the feeling that you’ve come close to some profound truth but could not break through to the core idea. The barrier between how far you’ve gone and what you actually want to possess is thin enough to push your hand through. It may not look that way, but it will feel that way if you use your tactile senses. In practical terms, when you encounter a belief about yourself or about the world, notice how you feel. Anything involving guilt can be considered suspect. Same for obligation you feel that does not have something productive in it for everyone, or where you come out on the short end of the deal. Question any form of any equation that includes, “You should dislike yourself because…”
Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Current aspects may have you rethinking a career or business plan. That’s actually a great idea. You seem to have a good idea, though what you need to do is balance your idealistic concept of what is possible against a diversity of practical concerns. Give yourself time for this — you seem to be involved in a thought process that will take about six weeks. My first question is not ‘is this thing too idealistic’ but rather, are you reaching for what you know would be the very best goal? However, before you get there, I suggest you strip your plan down to its most basic elements — what you want and why, what you need and why, what you want to accomplish. Consider how you manage your reputation. To what extent is your strategy defensive (laying low, protecting your supposed image) and to what extent is your strategy proactive (carefully cultivating the reputation you want, and deserve, for what you’ve accomplished)? Gradually, your logical mind will take over, and I suggest you run all your ideas through this particular mental filter. Keep reducing your idea till you’ve arrived at the bare essence, and understand every element of your plan or idea. Then toward the end of the month, you’re likely to rethink it yet again, only this time with greater clarity. At that point you will find the missing piece, the creative gem, the love in the dream.
Cancer (June 21-July 22) — I suggest you concern yourself less about how you are perceived by others and use that energy to focus on the substance of your goals. We live in a time when appearances are dangerously overtaking reality, and when glamour as a metric is prevailing over the quality of someone’s character. You could say this has been going on since the first motion picture was released, yet in truth it’s something that is happening from moment to moment. You continually get the choice which to feed, appearance or reality. Meanwhile, in a similar vein, you seem ready to question a belief that until now you’ve taken for granted. This belief is influencing a relationship. It’s not showing up as definitively helpful or unhelpful, but rather as something that you need to understand thoroughly. The belief is influencing the way you make your agreements with others, in a sense, biasing you. It will indeed be helpful if you know what that bias is, and you will soon have the clarity and mental tools to do so. This is a matter calling for careful analysis, of your own thought patterns as well as the specific elements of your commitments. What do you expect of others and what do they expect of you? How realistic are those expectations and what are they grounded in? You will have happier relationships for knowing these things.
Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — You seem to be seeking a compromise on a matter involving shared finances, or perhaps more accurately, a question about sexual values in an intimate relationship. The scenario seems to be going in the direction of someone’s fantasy of how things can be, though leaving out some of the more obvious practicalities. This is definitely a scenario that deserves to have logic, data or some form of science prevail, rather than any form of make-believe or let’s see what happens. And logic will indeed prevail, so I suggest you hold the line and be patient while the planets shuffle around in a pattern that describes the renegotiation of the relationship in a more holistic way. In other words, the discussion is likely to start on one topic, and then expand into other topics that are related on the level of shared values. This comes down to understanding the values you have in common, and those that you do not. I would remind you here that you’re in a somewhat vulnerable position when it comes to others overpowering you. It will not work so well to resist forcefully, so instead, I suggest you use persistence. Time is on your side. What is obvious to you will become obvious to others as the discussion moves along, and the result will be a new understanding of your relationship, built on level ground.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — If you’re hesitating about a relationship commitment, I would remind you that there is no rush. You may sense that you’re heading for deep water, or like you’re gradually being drawn into a situation that you don’t fully understand. When you are ready, this may be fully appropriate. Yet if you’re uncertain of yourself, slow down and observe your environment. The first thing to listen to is your intuition. If you suspect that you’re not being given full information, or if you have a hunch that you’re in any way being deceived, then pause and begin to look more deeply into the facts. You don’t need to do this in an accusatory way, but rather in a way that seeks grounding in objective information. Consciously seek the truth, and make sure that you actually understand what you learn. Address any denial factor that may be present; be mindful of what you ‘don’t want to know’ or ‘refuse to believe’. This process will take a bit of scrupulous honesty with yourself, though there may be clues that get you closer to the heart of the matter. I suggest you investigate with extra care any situation involving alcohol, or the influence of mood-altering drugs, be they prescription or otherwise. The question to ask is: how is this influencing your relationship to reality? How is it influencing intimacy? You want to know.
Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — The past five weeks of Venus retrograde seem to have been designed to help you understand the impact of your family history, and your complex emotions. The two are related; partly why your emotions are so complex is because you filter them through so many past impressions and memories. Yet many of those are not your own; they are habits and values you picked up from various people who influenced you. Take the time to sort out what belongs to you and what does not. Once you claim what is your own and let go of what belongs to others, you will feel a lot less lost, and be able to call yourself more fully present. This does not necessarily involve severing ties to anyone, though at times that is necessary. But it will help you immensely to know when someone else’s emotions became a point of orientation for you more important than your own feelings, and to see the distortion that created. That may go in two directions at once — being overly self-centered at times, and not being able to find your center at others. Understanding why you are the way you are is a theme that persists through most of the year. You’re likely to continue your review of the past, which is for the sole purpose of helping you know yourself better. That, in turn, will help you have clearer, more trusting relationships.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — It’s essential for your wellbeing to sort out what influences in your life are nourishing and which are depleting. This is not as easy as it seems in a society where it’s considered normal for people to eat unhealthy food for the sake of ating, to have relationships for the sake of relationships and to purchase many things that they don’t need and barely even want. Since that is the cultural standard, it’s necessary to take the time to figure out whether something you take in — be it food, entertainment, information, family influences or emotional contact — actually sustains you. It would be worthwhile to consider this question in the context of any sexual influence as well. I think the concept of ‘addiction’ is overused and misunderstood, but it begins to have meaning when there is the quality of some influence potentially controlling your life. If during the next few weeks you find yourself at a full stop, or feel like you can no longer effectively negotiate with yourself, that’s the time to take some time and inquire about the issue of control. There is often an associated question about whether you want the responsibility implied by self-determination. The most common reason I’ve seen people abandon their power is because it seems to offer liberation from the consequences of their own mistakes. That’s one form of liberation that will never serve you.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — You could have things be a lot easier than they currently are; you seem to have figured out that allowing yourself to be involved in complex situations is a way of learning about yourself. You seem to be in a scenario where your connection to someone else is like a personal development laboratory, or where you’re seeking self-actualization in the context of a relationship. You may have also figured out that such a thing does not work for you, and are resisting being so immersed in someone else, or anyone, with every cell in your being. There does seem to be a question lurking behind all of this, which is the extent to which you allow yourself to feel your feelings, and whether you need the assistance of someone else who resonates with you. This is a good question, with many implications — though the main theme is that of emotional independence. You would do well to ask, especially under your current astrology, whether that is possible, and if it is, what it means. At one extreme of the spectrum is the loner, with no emotional investments. At the other is someone codependent, whose emotional state is totally invested in what others think. The balancing point is healthy interdependence. That is built of mutual respect, self-reflection, communication and honoring for yourself and for everyone else what measure of freedom we have here on Earth.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Something seems to have happened to you over the past couple of months, involving coming into deeper contact with your creative gifts and your sexuality. You probably know or can guess that I consider these elements of humanity to be closely related, stemming right from the same source. To develop one, it’s essential to develop the other. Venus retrograde in your sign beginning at the solstice, spanning through the end of January, has done something magnificent for you: you have embodied something that was previously abstract or that existed in potential. You have taken steps to reclaim gifts that may have previously made you nervous, that you took for granted or considered something that only had relevance when you were younger. Here is the ongoing challenge: Devotion to artistry and the arts of erotic love requires self-focus. Even in our narcissistic culture, that can be considered suspect, and it can certainly be an irritant (or threatening) to people who have never considered any such quest. You need courage to persist on this mission, and you need to be willing to wrap your whole life around what will seem like a form of over-focus. Yet the idea is not to get lost in yourself — in order for your work or your discovery to have relevance, it’s necessary to find yourself. You are well on the way. Keep going.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Something is shifting for you on a deep inward level, which may feel like the healing of a kind of isolation or loneliness that has followed you around for a while. This has taken you a step closer to your soul, just when you were wondering if such a thing was even possible. Pay attention and you’ll notice that this keeps happening, with a slightly different feeling each time, though each time feeling like you’ve seated yourself in your own existence a little more firmly. It helps to make peace with the solitary nature of existence, or at least the compelling sensation of that effect. It’s the feeling of being alone in the universe that is a step in the awakening of every spiritually conscious person. That sensation of isolation does two things — it can come with the choice to give up looking outside yourself for what you can only find within; and it’s what opens the space to have the awakening of how alone you are not. That awakening is the dawn of authentic selflove. Nearly everyone who arrives there has earned it. They have faced their own darkness, to some real extent, and the mystery of their own existence. You are not done, but if your charts mean anything, you’re working with many more resources than you had just a few short months ago.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — You may feel like you’re dancing around the choice to immerse yourself totally in who you are — as if you’re playing a game of approach-avoid. Let’s assume that is true for a moment. When you feel any kind of approach-avoid, the first thing to check for is guilt. Fully soaking in your own reality implies that you will be yourself, and express yourself, without any reservations. Approach-avoid might show up as hesitancy with people knowing who you actually are, as if hiding it from yourself could in some way prevent them from finding out. That almost never works. People already recognize you and most are grateful for the example you provide. Some don’t seem that way, it’s true; you make some people nervous. I suggest, however, that you not underestimate the influence you have even on their lives. That said, it does not matter what anyone else thinks. Rather than avoiding anything, you actually seem to have come close to a discovery that you want to investigate, or have made an observation about yourself that you want to verify with some additional inner questing. I believe you’re about to discover how much sense you make; that is, that your seemingly most unworldly dreams, when subjected to logical analysis, actually make perfect sense. My saying this matters little, though — when you figure it out, it’ll rock your world and boost your confidence.
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Dear Friend and Reader:
Mercury stations direct on Sunday, arriving with several days of extraordinary and rare astrology — a kind of once-in-a-lifetime event as Mercury in Scorpio holds a long trine to Neptune in Pisces, covered in greater detail below.
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On Sunday, we had a rare hybrid solar eclipse similar to this one that happened in 2009. The astronomy is illustrated above. The total eclipse on the left was photographed by Fred Espenak aboard a ship 2,200 km west of the Galapagos; Stephan Heinsius photographed an annular eclipse, positioned in Panama for the same event.
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On the most basic level of this astrology, many aspects of life that were caught in weird entanglements or confusion may already be working themselves out. You may discover the missing information that you need to make some progress on matters that have seemed stuck. The ‘truth revealed’ aspect of Mercury stationing will be in full force this weekend as well.
These past few weeks of Mercury retrograde in Scorpio have arrived with a kaleidoscope of news that reminds me of the occasional headline summaries in Robert Heinlein’s novel Stranger in a Strange Land — the story of the Martian who came to visit the Earth, which scenario unfolds while all kinds of other weird stuff is going on. Reduced to a synopsis, the news starts to sound like a description of some wild future, when in fact it’s our present moment, right now, even if right now feels like shooting the rapids without a paddle or a life vest and in some cases, without the canoe.
It’s been humorous to watch how the top story during Mercury retrograde has been a $300 million website that did not (and apparently still does not) work. It’s charming how they launched the site just as Mercury entered shadow phase and the issues only got worse. The fact that just 248 people were able to register by the third day is a good reason to pay attention to astrology.
Along the way certain other facts have emerged (in harmony with ‘the truth revealed’ quality of Mercury retrograde), such as what a scam the individual health insurance market is, and how it’s possibly becoming an even bigger scam in the changing environment of the insurance business — especially as participation becomes mandatory.
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Current issue of The New Yorker spoofs the Obama Administration’s attempt to fix the Healthcare.gov website. But they seem to have got the idea from The Onion.
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Pres. Obama’s often-repeated assertion that “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan,” came unraveled as many people got cancellation notices, and some got fake cancellations from their insurance carriers designed to get them to upgrade to much more expensive insurance.
Lurking under all of these questions of high finance, huge profits and who is going to pay for $20 Tylenol capsules is the question of what we need to do to actually be healthier. I’m not seeing this question being asked, in all this talk of supposed health care.
How much disease in the United States is the result of just a few factors — genetically modified crops, high fructose corn syrup (pure GMO corn by the way), hydrogenated fats, processed meats, artificial sweeteners, diets based on simple carbs (such as bleached flour) and, as a result, rampant malnutrition?
What would addressing the vitamin D deficiency do to knock down the epidemics of cardiac disease and cancer? (Apparently quite a lot, for very little expense.)
As some look to the government to save them from themselves, the question of one’s health is deeply personal. While everyone should have access to the medical system when they need it, that bears little resemblance to what prevents illness and helps us to be healthy.
What we are seeing is not exactly a national movement for wellness. So far, it’s been little other than a vast corporate (not government) takeover of the medical system with a lot of faux political controversy mixed in.
For example, what has been termed Obamacare was engineered not by the ‘left’ but rather by the right-wing Heritage Foundation. It’s not the progressive solution (the government actually intervenes, or single-payer) but rather the fascist solution (government turns control over to the corporations, which are vested with government power).
Next, in News from Inner Space
Whatever has been going on within the confines of your personal cosmos in these weeks may have had the sensation of swirling events that may still feel unresolved. You may feel like you’re in the midst of a surrealist film, the kind without a script.
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Saturn with auroras visible on the south pole seen by the Cassini Space Probe in 2010. At the time, Space.com reported: “Saturn’s aurora, a ghostly ultraviolet glow that illuminates the gas giant’s upper atmosphere near the poles, has a heartbeat that pulses in tandem with the planet’s radio emissions, scientists have discovered.”
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There’s the sensation of ongoing reorientation, and the message that your transitions are happening whether you feel you’re ready for them or not.
Apropos of transitions, one week ago we arrived at the midpoint of the Uranus-Pluto square, the seven-stage aspect spanning from 2012-2015 (with a wide margin on either side) that has been defining what I’ve been describing as the 2012 era. This is an urgent, tense aspect between the planet of revolution and upheaval (Uranus) and that of evolution (Pluto), which is putting everything it touches under some strain and the necessity to reconsider its entire existence.
The fourth of seven squares happened Nov. 1, which has the feeling of a tipping point in the long experiment of social progress and the attempt to set things right that (from one point of view) characterizes our phase of history. Looked at differently, many are asking themselves what will wake up the population. The real question is what will get you out of your comfort zone and out onto the edge of personal progress, learning and challenging experience.
This past Sunday’s rare, combined annular-total solar eclipse in Scorpio vented some pressure, kind of like when your ears pop from the altitude, only reaching down to your soul and equalizing the pressure between levels of yourself you may have had no idea existed.
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The largest-known volcano in the solar system — the Olympus Mons, three times higher than Mt. Everest — is located on Mars. Photo: NASA.
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The eclipse conjunct Saturn was and remains a reminder that while we are in physical bodies, time is a limited resource. What are you doing with the time that you have? What limits on banality are you setting for yourself?
Along the way, Mars and Chiron came to full opposition on Oct. 31, and because Mars has been slowing down a bit (just ahead of a monumental retrograde that takes place early next year in Libra), the opposition has lasted a while.
This is an aspect illustrating and calling for clarity and contrast; it represents the full expression of both Mars and Chiron, which work beautifully together, as both are in the warrior spirit. I could summarize its message as: get over yourself and do what you have to do. If you’re going to play the game, play it to win. Make your seeming disadvantages work for you.
Events of the past few weeks have represented one of the peak moments of our grand water trine, which consists of Jupiter in Cancer, Mercury, the Sun and Saturn in Scorpio, and Chiron and Neptune in Pisces. Water is that beautiful Sun-drenched stuff that surrounds your sailboat or extends along the beach, in which you can drown in a matter of seconds.
Mars in Virgo has provided the remedy to all this water: keep your focus. Make decisions based on real information. Work with precision. Use your energy wisely.
Then, Mercury Stations Direct
The next major event on the horizon takes place as part of the water trine, and it is impressive. This weekend, Mercury slows to a station in early Scorpio, making an exact trine to Neptune. Actually, there are two exact trines, one on each side of the station direct, with the three events each separated by about 24 hours.
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Sholem Aleichem crater on Mercury. Photo by MESSENGER spacecraft, 2008.
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Mercury trine Neptune is one of the most clairvoyant aspects, particularly when Pisces and Scorpio are involved. Intuition is worth more now than ever. There can be a miraculous flow of creativity, intuition and empathic contact with others, including those in realms besides this one. Remember we are still in the ‘thin veil’ territory of Scorpio; Mercury trine Neptune is about as thin as it gets.
The first exact trine is Saturday, Nov. 9 at 4:35 pm EST. Then the station direct happens about 24 hours later, on Sunday, Nov. 10 at 4:12 pm EST. Then the second exact trine happens 24 hours after that, on Monday, Nov. 11 at 3:46 pm EST.
The overall result is an unusually long experience of an exact Mercury trine Neptune aspect, blended with the shifting perspective of the station direct. Normally this would last for a day or so; but due to Mercury’s minuscule daily motion as the station direct happens, we will have access to it for about six days, which began Thursday or so and lasts until Wednesday.
Then Mercury makes the last of three trines to Chiron — just as good, not as long-lasting. To sum up, in the ‘truth revealed’ tradition of Mercury retrograde and especially Mercury stationing direct, there is a hearty message of ‘seek the truth and you will indeed find it’. It’s not the unavailability of truth that makes it seem so elusive — it’s the unpopularity.
And Finally, News from Japan’s East Coast
Now for the freaky, surrealist story you may not have heard about. The problems persist at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan.
As everyone knows, there was a massive quake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 that caused a series of catastrophic failures in nuclear reactors. [Note, we have compiled a list of articles, resources and astrology charts related to Fukushima.]
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Photo of the tsunami striking the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The wall designed to hold back the sea was crumbled as the huge wave washed in. Photo: US EPA.
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The three plants that were operating — units 1, 2 and 3, all experienced total meltdowns. That is, the reactors ran out of control, overheated and the blend of uranium, plutonium and many other toxic radioactive isotopes melted through the containment structure and have disappeared into the ground.
Yes, three massive nuclear reactor cores melted into the Earth, never to be recovered. If those cores keep melting, they have the potential to reach the deep aquifers that provide water to the 40 million people in the greater Tokyo area.
It is astounding to think that an electric utility lost three reactor cores, which are gradually boring a hole in the Earth on the way down to the water table.
This, however, is the lesser of the two problems. The more serious problem involves Unit 4, which was closed for inspection at the time of the incident and therefore did not melt down. But the containment structure was severely damaged by the explosion in a nearby reactor.
Each of these plants has something called a spent fuel pool. Nuclear fuel, whether new or spent, must be kept immersed in water at all times, so that’s where the old fuel is placed and, in the case of Unit 4 (because it was being inspected), where the new fuel was being kept.
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Fukushima Unit 4 was damaged by an explosion in an adjacent reactor. Offline at the time of the tsunami, a vast amount of fuel in its reactor pool is vulnerable to another earthquake.
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There are more than 1,500 fuel assemblies in the Unit 4 pool, which is so fragile it cannot withstand another serious earthquake — and earthquakes happen frequently in that part of the world. These rods must be removed, one by one, by manually controlled robots.
TEPCO, in cooperation with U.S. engineers, are about to begin the process of removing the fuel from Unit 4’s pool. This is an extremely risky process, by which I mean that if it goes wrong (if the fuel assemblies are not immersed in water, if they touch, or if there is another earthquake), there is the potential for a far worse situation than we’ve already had at Fukushima.
Even spent fuel can reach criticality (the fission process can begin). This is similar to what happens when a nuclear plant is functioning, with one difference — a working nuclear core has control rods that can slow down the reaction. The spent fuel pool is like a reactor core without the control rods. If a reaction starts, it can run out of control.
The scene could become so radioactive that it cannot be entered by workers ever again, and also be emitting so much radiation and heat that even robots cannot function there. A mishap could quickly soak the West Coast of the United States and eventually all of North America in nuclear fallout.
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View into the the spent fuel pool of Unit 4, suspended in a fragile building 100 feet above the ground. All the fuel must be removed by manually controlled robots, which could take years.
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The fuel is covered in zirconium alloy cladding, which is flammable and explosive. One small mishap can set off the entire pool, which could spread to a nearby common fuel pool, where 6,375 more spent fuel assemblies are kept.
Removal of fuel from Unit 4’s pool was originally scheduled for this month, after many months of preparation. It may still begin in November and is expected to take well over a year to complete, if it goes well. Decommissioning the entire site will take decades, if it’s ever complete.
Now, here’s a question. Have you read about this anywhere, or seen it mentioned on cable news, or network news? I have not. It’s as if the whole thing is not happening, except if you go looking for the information. On one level it’s available, and on another, the gatekeepers who could inform many people what’s happening are not doing so.
Instead, we got a propaganda film shown on CNN on Thursday night, called Pandora’s Promise, about how nuclear power might be the only thing that can save the environment.
They must be talking about some other planet.
Lovingly,
Additional research on Fukushima: Chad Woodward, Elizabeth Michaud and Susan Scheck. Their work is collected here.
We’ll be back after a word from our nuclear propagandists
Just as engineers at the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima nuclear plant get ready to move 1,524 fuel assemblies from the spent fuel pool, CNN aired a 2013 “documentary” called Pandora’s Promise by Robert Stone.
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The premise of the film is how alleged ecological activists have thought about it for a while and have come to the conclusion that nuclear power is good for the environment.
Its takeoff point is that we have to do something about global warming — and that something is to build a lot of nuclear power plants, so that we can power up every place from New Jersey to Namibia (spreading the gospel of cheap electricity to the developing world).
The “documentary” had so many problems (or rather, innovative design features) I am having trouble deciding where to begin analyzing them. I think, however, that the most serious was the point of view of its director, stated in a panel discussion hosted by Anderson Cooper, that as a result of nuclear power, “Nobody has died, nobody has gotten sick and according to the best science in the world, nobody ever will.”
Nobody? Ever? Right. He tried to make the case that everyone who responded to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster is fine (well, except for a few who are not, who don’t matter that much), and everyone who responded to Fukushima are all doing great. The American nuclear industry has an impeccably perfect record.
To put it politely, everything in this movie is a lie or delusion told by people who are seduced by the seemingly supernatural power of nuclear technology and who have succumbed to the dark side. Physicists explain how it’s fantastic in theory, skipping over what can go wrong.
Like the rest of the nuclear industry, the documentary does not address any worst-case scenarios, which must be ignored if the agenda is to persist. For example, what happens if there is a power grid outage with the plants shut down, and there’s no electricity to run the cooling systems?
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Three Mile Island, near Harrisburg, PA, became the visual symbol for all that was wrong with nuclear power. Unit One to the left is still operating; Unit 2 melted down and has not been used since the accident. Photo: Atomic Archive.
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Nuclear power plants make energy when they’re on and draw power when they’re off. An energy ejection from the Sun could knock out a huge swath of the power grid. Then what? Not discussed; not mentioned.
What about a meltdown near a big city? You cannot evacuate Tokyo or the metro New York area; there are no plans to do so. Not mentioned.
The idea that the potential for a low-probability but catastrophic event has to be ignored is a central argument of my nuclear power mentor Karl Grossman, who documents how the atomic bomb and nuclear power are the same thing — a fact that the film went to some length to dismiss.
Among those featured were Stewart Brand, devoted pro-nuclear founder of the Whole Earth Catalog; Mark Lynas (a British climate change author and activist), Richard Rhodes (journalist and historian, and author of the Pulitzer-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb) and Michael Shellenberger (alleged environmental policy expert), all of whom came to the conclusion that nuclear power is the only thing that can save us from global warming.
Helen Caldicott, a doctor and anti-nuclear activist, makes a cameo. Actual environmental advocates were portrayed as fear mongers who are the real problem. This is the ‘blame the messenger’ / An Enemy of the People argument that is getting so old I am surprised anyone falls for it, but hey, we’re talking about humans.
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What could possibly go wrong? Aftermath of 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine.
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Anderson Cooper’s panel, aired several times through the night, included Ralph Nader, whom Shellenberger accused of being the problem. He said that frantic ’60s- and ’70s-styled Earth Day-types — not radiation — were to blame for unfair public perception of the industry as dangerous. That, in turn, shut down development of new nuclear plants after the 1979 Three Mile Island accident (therefore, the industry could not be given a fair chance).
Watching Pandora’s Poison reminded me of my teenage conversations with my father, who was on the public relations team that tried to clean up after the Three Mile Island accident. Prof. Coppolino went on to be a nuclear power industry communications consultant. What I learned from my father is that the nuclear industry believes that its product is absolutely, perfectly, unquestionably safe.
“We don’t know what to do with the nuclear waste,” I once said.
“I’ll give you that,” he replied. Turns out that was extremely generous of him.
Pandora’s Promise would not go that far — they argued that the problem of nuclear waste was solved perfectly by above-ground, dry cask storage. All the waste generated by all the nuclear power plants in the U.S. so far would merely cover a football field. And hey, it’ll be perfect after a few millennia — except of course for the plutonium, which takes a little longer. Unless the fuel in some storage facility reaches criticality and an uncontrolled fire starts. Or unless someone bombs the place, or if there is a quake and the casks break or…
— Eric Francis
Mercury direct; Jupiter retrograde
Mercury, which has been retrograde in Scorpio since Oct. 21, finally stations direct this Sunday, Nov. 10 at 4:12 pm EST. This means we’re entering the ‘storm’ phase now: the two or three days on either side of a Mercury station, when communication, travel and electronics can be especially problematic. Notice when you’re not fully focused on the task at hand.
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Jordan Pond in the mist, Acadia National Park, Maine. Photo by Amanda Painter.
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Planets do not actually change directions — retrogrades are a trick of perception, giving the illusion of reverse movement relative to our position here on Earth. Astrologically, however, the days around a station carry some tension as Mercury, the fastest of planets, seems to slow down to a stop. It takes a while to pick up speed after its station; so should you, through at least the beginning of next week.
Imagine a large ship throwing its engines in reverse to stop and back up (or vice versa): the water churns. With Mercury in Scorpio, a water sign, that churning could very well stir up all kinds of surprising insights from our darker depths. There is often a sense of ‘the truth comes out’ when Mercury stations direct — as though after a three-week journey of introspection, the planet representing our minds finally releases its discoveries into full consciousness.
Mercury’s retrograde in Scorpio has likely focused you on themes regarding your sexual history; the role of denial in your intimate life or in how you handle your resources (including but not limited to money); secrets regarding sex or death; and what factors determine when you do or do not communicate these things to your partner(s).
If you have not been tracking these themes in your life over the last couple weeks, consider taking a few moments to think back to spot any patterns or trends. Doing so might help you notice subtler “a-ha” moments during the station direct.
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Chart showing the moment Mercury stations direct in Scorpio. Planets in aspect to Mercury include: Pluto and Venus in Capricorn (top of chart), in a loose sextile to Mercury; and Neptune in Pisces (far left), exactly trine Mercury. See glyph legend here.
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Eric has described Mercury stations as “bring[ing] out a layer of awareness or understanding that can feel like pulling back a curtain on the obvious.” That pretty much sums up coming out of denial, a theme of recent weeks.
Mercury will station direct in a trine (aspect of ease) to Neptune in Pisces. A Mercury-Neptune trine emphasizes creativity, psychic awareness, and a poetic but practical type of idealism. Sounds like whatever truth is revealed to you Sunday can be used toward inspired or visionary purposes; pay attention to your dreams over the next few days.
Finally, it is worth noting that Jupiter stationed retrograde in Cancer Thursday — “trading places” with Mercury in a sense. Jupiter is the planet of expansion, and in Cancer, that quality is being applied to all things domestic and nurturing, and our emotions. Jupiter’s retrograde is long — lasting until March 6 — so we’re in for a four-month review of how we’ve been handling the things and people we’re charged with nurturing and caring for, including our material success.
Jupiter stationing retrograde is a caution against getting stingy (with money and with intangibles) for the next few months. First, however, the Mercury storm: be focused and careful with financial transactions and emotionally charged communication over the next several days.
— Amanda Painter
Note to Readers: News items below are written and edited by a team consisting of Anne Craig, Eric Francis, Amanda Painter, Susan Scheck and Carol van Strum, with research assistance by the Planet Waves staff. Special thanks to the Fact Checkers List, which goes over each edition on Thursday night — and to our main astrology fact-checker Alex Miller, and Amanda, who goes over all their suggestions. Our editions are also proofread and fact-checked by Jessica Keet.
Hardcore Conservatives Not Celebrating Much These Days
New York City voters elected public advocate Bill de Blasio, the first Democratic mayor since David Dinkins left office in 1993, by a record-breaking 49 point spread. The race was widely considered a referendum on the past two decades of Republican leadership.
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Bill de Blasio and family at the Park Slope Armory YMCA after winning the New York City mayoral election. Photo: James Keivom / New York Daily News.
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Outgoing Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was perceived as a standard-bearer for the city’s wealthiest, and continued his predecessor Rudy Giuliani’s uber-authoritarian law enforcement tactics, such as stop-and-frisk, where pedestrians are detained, frisked and asked to empty their pockets. They are then arrested if they have a small amount of marijuana, which would have been legal had it remained in their pocket.
De Blasio campaigned against stop-and-frisk, and has promised a tax on residents making over half a million dollars a year that will fund universal pre-kindergarten.
Virginia residents chose the lesser of two evils and elected former Democratic National Committee chair and Clinton intimate Terry McAuliffe over Ken Cuccinelli by a two percent margin. Cuccinelli’s loathing for women and sexuality — he supported “personhood” bills that would have criminalized not just abortion but birth control, and had a curious obsession with Virginia’s anti-sodomy law — helped Virginians overcome any distaste for political insiders or lingering doubts about the Affordable Care Act, which the Cuccinelli campaign had hoped would swing votes their way.
And in an outcome that surprised no one, New Jersey’s governor won a second term over Democrat Barbara Buono. While hardly a progressive darling, Republican Chris Christie sounds moderate enough (and was seen in photos with Pres. Obama) to have aggravated the far right on numerous occasions. His win adds to speculation that he may be a contender for a spot on the 2016 Republican ticket — but he has problems in his past that could make that unlikely.
Numerous races that didn’t make it onto the national radar turned out well for progressive candidates and causes. Among other cheering tidbits, three out of four anti-fracking measures passed in Colorado, liberals swept city council races in Missoula, Montana, and the small town of Coralville, Iowa, resoundingly rejected a well-funded takeover attempt by Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity candidates.
SCOTUS Refuses Attempt to Preserve Sodomy Law
Ken Cuccinelli II, Virginia’s attorney general and Republican candidate for governor defeated in Tuesday’s election, apparently shot his campaign in the foot with his effort to preserve an outdated sodomy statute. Virginia’s “crimes against nature” law — which bans oral and anal sex — became a tipping point for voters in his race with Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe, who won.
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“Open wide and take it like a…” Virginia is for lovers after all. AP photo of Ken Cuccinelli.
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All state laws of this sort, known as sodomy laws, were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 2003 ruling Lawrence v. Texas, which decided that private sexual conduct by consenting adult civilians is protected by the U.S. Constitution under the due process clause. Before 2003, 47 states, Washington D.C. and four territories had repealed their sodomy laws on their own, despite their being legal.
In October, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Cuccinelli’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that had struck down Virginia’s anti-sodomy law in March 2013. That decision had focused on a 2005 case convicting a 47-year-old man who had solicited oral sex from a minor. Cuccinelli and his supporters claimed the law was necessary to protect children from sexual predators.
However, the Virginia General Assembly has had 10 years to update the law so that it could be used to prosecute predators without conflicting with the 2003 SCOTUS ruling and the Constitution.
A claim by Cuccinelli that the anti-sodomy law “is not — and cannot be — used against consenting adults acting in private” is belied by a 2009 statement suggesting his true agenda: that “homosexual acts are wrong and should not be accommodated in government policy.” Said another way, he’s trying to reestablish the old assertion that homosexual = child molester.
Perhaps given the history of Virginia’s sodomy law, the lag in fixing the wording should be no surprise: in 1778, Thomas Jefferson drafted a law (rejected by the Virginia State Legislature) mandating castration as the punishment for men committing the act — intended as a ‘softer’ punishment than the death penalty.
Pussy Riot Update: Siberian Silence
News that Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, one of two jailed members of Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot, is being transferred to a new penal colony has been a mixed blessing — at least her loved ones know she’s alive. Two weeks of silence from prison officials about the 23-year-old had been raising fears of the worst among her supporters.
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Three members of Pussy Riot were originally arrested: (L to R) Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Aliokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich. Samutsevich was acquitted. Photo: Sergei Chirikov /EPA.
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Tolokonnikova and another member of Pussy Riot were jailed after they participated in a February 2012 protest against Vladimir Putin in a Moscow cathedral.
In September, she penned an open letter in The Guardian UK detailing the horrific treatment of prisoners in her Mordovian penal colony — considered one of the worst in Russia — and announcing her decision to wage a hunger strike in protest (see Planet Waves coverage here).
Tolokonnikova’s husband, Pyotr Verzilov, announced on Twitter Tuesday that a reliable source had confirmed she is being moved to a penal colony in a region of Siberia four time zones away from Moscow. He wrote that she is being transferred “as punishment for the resonance of her letter.”
Russia still transfers prisoners in secret, often by train and with an unknown destination. Depending on the number of stops at “transit prisons,” a transfer can take anywhere from two weeks to two months — all the while keeping a prisoner’s family in the dark. (Prisoner transfer is also often secretive in the U.S., but takes less time.)
According to Russia’s rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin (as reported by Huffington Post via Interfax), prison officials claim her health is acceptable after having been put on an IV drip while on hunger strike; she is eating; and she is being accompanied by a doctor during the transfer. Tolokonnikova is set to be released in March.
Washington GMO Labeling Law Referendum Still Uncertain
Most news outlets are saying the Washington State measure to adopt mandatory GMO labeling on food failed to pass in Tuesday’s election. Supporters are saying: Not so fast. If passed, it would become the second state to have a GMO law on the books, after Connecticut — which seeks to turn labeling into a regional affair.
Initial reports from the Washington Secretary of State said the initiative is trailing with 45 percent of the vote (55 percent opposed) with about 60% of the vote counted. However, Washington is a mail-in vote state, and final results may not be known for a week or more, with an official number due by Nov. 26. According to an email from Food Democracy Now, about 600,000 votes remain to be counted.
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State Senator Maralyn Chase shows the first election results of I-522 to Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap CEO David Bronner CQ during the Yes on I-522 campaign party in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood. Photo: Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times.
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The Yes on I-522 campaign is still optimistic. Those who live in Seattle and surrounding counties, who have supported the measure in polling, tend to mail their ballots at the last minute, and so election results are often late, said a spokesperson. They believe that these late votes will be enough to pass the initiative.
The initiative was first submitted in February 2013 by grassroots labeling advocates who had collected more than 320,000 signatures, enough to place it before the legislature. Since there had been no resolution in the legislature by April, when the session ended, the measure was placed on the ballot. A similar measure in California was defeated in the November 2012 election.
As in California, the initiative was hotly contested, with opponents — led by Monsanto, DuPont and the Grocery Manufacturers Association — throwing $22 million into the ring, three times the amount as did proponents Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, Mercola.com and others. A complete list of supporters can be found here, and previous Planet Waves coverage here and here.
Connecticut’s governor signed the nation’s first mandatory GMO labeling law in June 2013, but it contains some conditions that must be met before it can go into effect: four other states must enact similar legislation, one of which must share a border with Connecticut, and the combined population of the Northeastern states that enact GMO-labeling laws must total more than 20 million in population based on the 2010 census.
The conditions were set to protect “local farming by ensuring that the regional agriculture market has adopted the new labeling system before placing an undue and disproportionate burden on Connecticut farmers that requires them to analyze and label products,” according to a press release from the Connecticut Governor’s Office.
In 2013 nearly half of U.S. states have introduced bills requiring labeling or prohibiting GMO foods, according to the Center for Food Safety. CFS has several model bills for those wishing to get an initiative started in their state. Contact them at office@centerforfoodsafety.org.
You’re Only as Sick as Your Secrets
The allied nations and the American body politic have been dragged kicking and screaming into some family therapy, with 30-year-old Edward Snowden in the role of the courageous problem child — or rather the chess prodigy — who makes the family rethink everything.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel shows her displeasure over the alleged tapping of her very official-looking cell phone by the NSA. Photo: Julian Stratenschulte / AP.
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If you’re German Chancellor Angela Merkel, you can call Obama on the phone and tell him to quit listening to your phone calls. Ordinary folk lack that option, but a consensus seems to have emerged in the wake of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden’s disclosures about NSA practices: the agency overstepped.
Some of the mind-boggling breadth of the snooping-in-progress is simply the result of there being just so much more data out there to collect in the information age. Spying itself is nothing new.
From Merkel’s phone call to Obama to the about-face of Patriot Act authors (who are now sponsoring the “Freedom Act” in an effort to restrict warrantless wiretaps and mass data collection and increase transparency), a lot that was under the table is now squarely on top of it.
Last weekend featured much discussion of whether Snowden, currently granted “limited asylum” in Russia, should be granted clemency; not on the table, say U.S. officials. Snowden hasn’t requested it, although he has asked for the support of the worldwide community and, in a manifesto published in Germany on Sunday, says that the debate taking place proves he did the right thing.
Snowden reportedly took some 50,000 files when he left the NSA, and has released only about 1 percent of the information so far. A former NSA director told The New York Times recently that spymasters should lay all of their cards on the table and ‘fess up to everything Snowden could possibly say.
What’s unclear is whether any reform imaginable can ever fully restore the level of individual or international privacy presumed and taken for granted before the era of Homeland Security forming an alliance with the age of info-tech. Private corporations routinely partner with public agencies in “fusion centers” where the mission has shifted from counterterrorism to protection against “all hazards.” Apparently, we’re all “hazards” now.
Porno Sex Versus Real Sex: The Foodie Version
Much has been written recently about how easy it is to view Internet porn, and to what extent it is influencing the way people think sex is supposed to happen. Finally, here’s the perfect video (posted by Egotastic!) to put the super-human body parts and skills in porn into better perspective… using food. Laugh at the imagery, and take comfort in the statistics: chances are, you and your partners are perfectly normal. And tasty.
Mercury direct, Sun conjunct Saturn and Monogold
As the Scorpio sky continues to deepen, Planet Waves FM explores the themes coming along with that — a conjunction of the Sun and Saturn Wednesday, introspective Mercury turning direct on Sunday and a recap of the eclipse cycle we just experienced.
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The incredible Monogold, musical guest on Planet Waves FM.
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Closing up the first set, I look at the issues the world is facing at the Fukushima nuclear power station in Japan.
My musical guest is the magnificent, incomparable Monogold, who I saw play at BSP last Friday evening.
In Act 2, I continue my sexual advocacy rant, pulling back the veils one by one and getting a look at what is back in the shadows. Note to Scorpios — on Tuesday I recorded your astrology reading for the 2013-2014 solar year.
The reading consists of two sections of astrology and one of tarot, presented in patient, clear detail, light on the astro-talk and rich in psychological insight.
By the way — there’s now a second podcast on Planet Waves FM, featuring indie music. It’s centered at Backstage Studio Productions but you hear about all kinds of great stuff you might not discover otherwise. This week I host with my guitar teacher Dan Sternstein. Here is a direct link.
Behind the Veils of Scorpio – Reading by Eric Francis
Listen to 15 minute preview — and order.
This year has brought the most interesting Scorpio astrology that I ever remember. An unusual eclipse, Mercury retrograde and Saturn all in your sign — plus Pluto in the spotlight of history — I cover all of this and more in your birthday reading.
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Topically, I guide you through the process of aligning with your environment, creating clear agreements with others and the use of time as an ally rather than as something you might struggle with.
In the second section, I take the journey inward and guide you through the process of getting to know the most intimate aspects of who you are, and revealing your innermost secrets to yourself.
While that will be happening for you with or without an astrology reading, being in tune with your planets and knowing something about their message for you will make the process easier and open up the potential for greater creativity in your growth and evolution.
I also include a 30-minute tarot reading using the Voyager tarot by James Wanless, photos of your cards and the chart that I’ve used, access to prior years’ readings and a few other things as well.
Listen to 15 minute preview — and order.
We are happy to offer once again one of our most popular products: the Planet Waves All-Access Pass for 2014. The All-Access Pass is for members who want access to everything we offer in a calendar year. In recent years our product line has grown considerably, and the response from our All-Access subscribers has been overwhelmingly positive. You can read about everything that’s included with an All-Access pass here. For those who can’t get enough Planet Waves astrology, it’s an unbeatable value. Plus, if you order now, we’ll include the rest of the readings that come out in 2013, and you’ll save $100.
Your Monthly Horoscopes — and our Publishing Schedule Notes
The extended monthly horoscope for November was published Friday, Oct. 25. Inner Space for November was published Friday, Nov. 1. We published Moonshine for the Aries Full Moon Tuesday, Oct. 15. Moonshine for the Scorpio New Moon was published Tuesday, Oct. 29. Please note, we normally publish the extended monthly horoscope on the first Friday after the Sun has entered a new sign; Inner Space usually publishes the following Tuesday but for now it’s substituting for one Friday horoscope a month.
Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Nov. 8, 2013 #974 | By Eric Francis
Aries (March 20-April 19) — If you have something to say, then say it. I understand you may be hesitating, but I suggest you not miss this opportunity, and that in support of that, you not give yourself excuses to chicken out. Yes, this is one of those situations where you don’t know the effect that revealing something intimate may have on a personal relationship. But you can surmise the effect of not doing so, which is to remain stuck or feeling like there’s no space for you to be yourself. In fact there is space, and you can test that out by being clear, straightforward and explicit, and not holding back any aspect of what you think, what you feel, or what you want. You risk flipping the whole situation from something that feels stagnant to something that actually turns you on.
Taurus (April 19-May 20) — The ongoing revelation known as your life is about to teach you something about yourself. This is likely to fall into the ‘what you’ve known all along’ category but somehow missed or failed to take conscious note of. With Saturn making its way across your relationship angle, it’s essential to keep your eye on the bottom line, whatever that is for you. You know that stability and commitment are your basic foundations. What the stars are now saying is that in any structured relationship, there must be room to change, grow and exchange ideas that can actually influence the situation. You have a safe container. Now, the question is how far you will go to use it in a creative and evolutionary way. In other words: you have selected your relationship style for a purpose. Now is the time to put that purpose to use.
Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Any health issues you’re facing are likely to be stress related. Those are the ones that don’t show up on X-rays, blood work, urine tests, CAT scans or dog scans. They’re the ones that most doctors miss or cannot quite identify. If you’ve recently sought medical advice, you might want to seek a second opinion from someone who specializes in the mind-body connection; but more to the point, I suggest you personally look at the connection between what you are feeling and what you’re experiencing physically. This may involve your role in a sexual relationship. You may be over-exerting yourself in some way — that is, trying to impose your will on someone, or alternately, someone may be trying to exert their will on you. Time management could be a question; it’s become clear, if nothing else, that you must pace yourself, and that others must support you in that.
Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Your life will not spin out of control if you give yourself a little room to experiment. It may seem like existence has been denying you some of the deeper pleasures you desire, though it’s also true that on some level you’ve been avoiding them. This may be because you’re not in the mood to take risks, or because you’ve been pursuing what you regard as more practical matters. In any event, the weather and the tides are shifting, and you’ve been seeing signs of this on your personal horizons for a week or so now, perhaps longer. This is a deeper re-evaluation than it may seem on the surface, involving harmonizing your personal needs and desires, your desire to play and express yourself, and a spiritual dimension. As for the latter, Jupiter in your birth sign is reminding you that the whole concept of ‘spiritual’ is useless unless it leads to happiness and pleasure.
Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — You seem to be doing a pretty good job at avoiding being emotionally overwhelmed, despite having a number of excuses to feel that way. You have the ability to withdraw part of yourself into a secret location. I suggest you avoid that tendency, though, and move in the opposite direction — that is, stay close to the surface of your awareness. Be present for yourself and the people around you. Maintain some equilibrium between your inner life and your immediate environment. Said simply, you’re better off if you reveal to others how you feel, which may not involve explaining it in detail but rather with a simple statement and allowing yourself the space to be exactly as you are. This is not about there being no place to hide; it’s about opening the windows and allowing in fresh air and sunshine.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — There is little point trying to organize the mental details, an exact plan or trying to get control by collecting all of the information that’s out there. You’re probably feeling the inclination to exert your power that way, an impulse that can be better directed. There’s a very good point to knowing where you stand with yourself at all times, even if you don’t have words for it. In other words, the most vital information you can have is your own opinion, and what your intuition is telling you. You don’t need to know what everyone else thinks or what is motivating them; you merely need to know what is motivating you, and put that information to work. While you’re sometimes reluctant to trust your intuition if you don’t have some other form of data, you’re now in territory where your hunches can trump what seem like hard and cold facts. That’s the problem with them — their inflexibility. Notice that your intuition will keep you responsive to your feelings and your environment from moment to moment, updating you constantly.
Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — I suggest you respond to a burning desire rather than denying it or trying to pretend it’s not affecting you. You may have tried to compartmentalize this one many times, and it hasn’t worked. Now you get to burst out of those compartments, and it’s probably going to feel awesome. It could be awesome in that orgasmic way, or like when a shard of glass that got embedded in your skin years ago finally makes its way to the surface, tearing the skin to get out but it feels awesome because it’s finally getting out. Or as is most likely, a deep inner truth that you’re finally coming to terms with, which is arriving with an awesome sense of relief. It’s a beautiful thing to actually feel committed and passionate, and to put the two together. It’s awesome when you allow yourself to acknowledge the love that you feel.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) –Think of this moment as a focal point where numerous themes, issues and story lines both intersect and diverge. Everything you’ve done has led you to this point, and you can take your life many different directions from here. You may know this on one level, yet you seem poised to discover it on another. There is an image in your chart about bringing these two levels of awareness together — and stepping fully into what you know, including what you know about where you’ve been. There are some experiences you don’t want to repeat, and others that you want to explore more deeply; you’re also becoming aware of what you’ve never done before that you simply must experiment with. Most significantly, there are places you want to go, by which I mean with every cell of your DNA sending the same message, and I suggest you make plans to visit at least one of them within the next six months.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — At a certain point, you’re going to have to think of yourself as being something other than emotionally wounded. It’s true that you’ve suffered some injuries; everyone has, and you have a few that stand out in comparison to the people you know. It’s just that carrying around that idea makes something that happened in the past realer than it is, and realer than it needs to be. You may not be able to directly address the past situation; you may not be able to resolve it. But information is becoming available from another part of your consciousness which may show you two things: one is how you’ve put what happened in the past to good use, and I do mean very good use. The other is that while you may have some memory or personality matrix organized around this past event, you have in fact moved beyond it, and no longer need to define your personality or the trajectory of your life around this thing.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) –It’s not easy to take even a single step outside of the reasoning that love is good and lust is bad, which reasoning is based on the notion that there is some actual distinction to be made. Sure, checking out someone’s ass as they walk down the street is different from deep and abiding friendship. Yet that fact alone does not make one bad and the other good, or one fake and the other real. Both are natural, and for your purposes, what is natural is healthy and related to everything else that’s a fact of nature. At the moment your tendency is likely to be running in the direction of lusty passion, a sensation that’s going to grow stronger over the next few days. This is more likely to put you into the company of people you’re in harmony with.
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — You can finally divorce your parents. It’s about time. The thing about some divorces (if not all) is they make it easier to move on and be friends. The thing about divorcing your parents is that this makes it possible for the kid who is grafted to them, or to an idea of who they are (or were), to step up and be an adult. It’s not easy to see the influence that unhealthy bonding with mother and father has, especially if that influence is everywhere. You have reached the point in your life when you know it’s time to be your own authority. That’s the only way to get over what some call ‘authority issues’. It’s not necessary to project authority onto others, then rebel against it. I would say that if you want to be happy, it’s necessary to claim the right to run your own life. It’s not easy but it is possible — now.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — If you knew how protected you are, you would worry a lot less. Yet you still have a layer of learning, or programming, that says you have to be vigilant every minute, and to discern, in advance, the influence that something will have on you. I would point out that vigilance and fear are two different things, and that you’re now at a different level of learning. You have mastered, or at least reached, an advanced level on certain skills, including problem-solving. While at one time you may have learned that it’s not a good idea to use your ability to get out of trouble as an excuse to be careless, you can now count on it a little more. Yet something else is working for you, which is a guidance system that it’s taken you years to cultivate. This is a form of vigilance operating beyond normal awareness, working in the background, and with considerable support from what you might think of as spiritual agency. You can trust it; events in the coming days will show you that.
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Dear Friend and Reader:
The astrology we’re living through gets more interesting every week. Sometimes it seems like it’s ramping up exponentially — and starting now, it gets more interesting every day. As this happens we will be able to see with our eyes the most visually spectacular Full Moon of the year.
We will experience the following:
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Trapeze artists in circus, lithograph by Calvert Litho. Co., 1890.
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Friday, June 21, the Sun ingressesed Cancer. That’s the Northern Hemisphere summer solstice, winter in the Southern Hemisphere. Consciousness spins on the axis of the solstices, which are the extremes of the longest day and the longest night. The Sun is now 90 degrees from where the zodiac begins, so this counts for an Aries Point event — along with everything else that’s happening.
The Aries Point, one of the great mysteries of astrology, magnifies whatever astrological events and objects that happen to make contact with it. World events seem personal and personal events fit a much wider pattern. Think of the Aries Point as the intersection where your life meets the bigger world. Aries Point events, which seem to come more frequently every year, are going to try to get our attention till we recognize we’re part of something larger and actually do something about it.
Saturday, June 22, Venus is conjunct Vesta in Cancer. This is a conjunction of a planet and an asteroid, which takes us to theheart of the matter where sex meets spirituality meets service meets purpose. Mercury, slow and powerful before it stations retrograde, is in a very close conjunction to both Venus and Vesta. The Sun is exactly conjunct a radical feminine point called the Black Moon Lilith. The sensation of this setup is going deep into the heart of your feelings; deep into the core of your erotic reality and how this relates to nourishing our essential humanity (the sign Cancer).
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Synchronized water ballet — viral image.
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Sunday, June 23, there’s the Capricorn Full Moon just two days after solstice. When you put a solar/lunar event like the Full Moon on the Aries Point, the effect is multiplied exponentially. Also, this is the biggest Full Moon of the year, aligning with the Moon’s closest pass to the Earth within one hour (see illustration).
Tuesday, June 25, Jupiter ingresses Cancer for the first time in nearly 12 years. This is some of the biggest and best news of 2013. It’s not just that Jupiter is exalted in Cancer — that is, one of the planets most closely associated with that sign and most at home there. Jupiter does two impressive things as it passes through Cancer. One is that it makes a grand water trine, joining Saturn in Scorpio and Chiron and Neptune in Pisces; the other is that it will slip into the Uranus-Pluto square (the 2012-era aspect).
Wednesday, June 26, Mercury stations retrograde in Cancer. It’ll be retrograde until July 20, the day the Sun ingresses Leo. This is the second of three Mercury retrogrades exclusively in the water signs, which describes our very watery year (link takes you to Planet Waves subscriber materials on this topic). Not only does Mercury spend seven months in water signs, it does so along with slow-movers Jupiter, Saturn, Chiron and Neptune.
When you combine all this Aries Point activity with Jupiter, the result is likely to be noticeable, as in unavoidable — particularly since Jupiter itself will be activating the Aries Point.
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From PostSecret.com.
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These days there is constant talk of change, and making the world better, and wanting to participate more, and do something more meaningful — but as you know, most of this is basically a combination of air and sound rather than anything substantial. While there are many factors that might seem to be blocking participation, I think that most of them are internal rather than external.
One quest of our times is learning how not to be so self-absorbed without losing ourselves at the same time. We are a culture that extols the virtues of narcissism, selfishness and competition. These same qualities are often projected into our ‘self-help’ and ‘spiritual’ endeavors. Often the result is being a supposedly perfect person, connected to the universe, aligned in mind, body and spirit — and then offering nothing back except for how wonderful we are.
Part of being so enlightened often means ignoring or not being able to handle anything on the level of politics, civics, the news or developments in the world. It’s an extremely disconnected form of spiritualism — perfect for a world where everything is a commodity and where often the goal is total fulfillment without taking any risks except maybe pulling a muscle in yoga class.
There is an obsession with having clean hands: not discussing anything controversial, be it what you really think about something in the news, what you really want from, or to do in, your relationships or who you really are in your sexual dimension. This is the illusion of purity — the only kind there is.
This is astrology that can get you wet, and dirty, and agitated, and sweaty, and excited and, most of all, INVOLVED.
Lovingly,
News briefs below are written and researched by Amanda Painter, Susan Scheck, Liam Carey, Carol van Strum and me (Eric Francis). I write most of the astrology-based materials.
Super Solstice and a Bold, Steamy July
Today is the Cancer solstice — the Sun ingressed the fourth sign of the zodiac earlier Friday (in U.S. time zones). As detailed above, pretty much the first thing that happens during the new season is a Full Moon. Happening on the third day of the season, this counts as an Aries Point effect. Think of that as standing inside a cosmic repeating station.
Jupiter will ingress Cancer on June 25 for the first time in nearly 12 years, joining Saturn in Scorpio and Chiron and Neptune in Pisces. This will complete an extended grand water trine that lasts well into 2014. Jupiter will also make a square to Uranus and an opposition to Pluto, beginning a new phase of what I’ve been calling 2012-era astrology.
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Capricorn Full Moon, set for Washington, D.C.
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Mercury will be retrograde in Cancer beginning June 26 through July 20. We’re in the storm phase of Mercury all weekend, when the Mercury retrograde is the most noticeable — right before the station retrograde. I suggest you not try to do complicated data backups unless you take safeguards and really know what you’re doing.
If you’re working on plans or initiating a new project, make sure you leave a few days’ margin after the retrograde ends to allow Mercury to come back up to speed and focus your thoughts. If there are delays, maybe take care of stray details and preparations until Mercury stations direct in a few weeks. Sometimes it’s worth slowing down — it can save time.
As mentioned, Mercury spends seven months of 2013 in water signs. Mercury in any water sign favors intuition over rational thought, though it’s not an invitation to guess at everything or to allow yourself to be driven exclusively by your emotions. We have quite enough of that, inundated as we are with advertising that is little other than emotionally manipulative.
Fact-check your intuitive hints without second-guessing yourself. Simply assess the veracity of your perceptions and beliefs, and take note when you come across information that contradicts some expectation that you have.
On July 1, the Sun will oppose Pluto. This is an annual event and one of those deep aspects. It’s a time to focus your creative will. Make sure that if you encounter a power struggle of any kind, you handle matters gently rather than forcefully. This aspect has plenty of influence and a lot of momentum behind it. You will be convincing in half your usual word count and at a fraction of the volume. No matter what you’re doing, consider the growth angle.
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Full Moon at Sounion, temple to Neptune. Photo by Anthony Ayiomamitis.
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On July 4, the Sun makes a square to Uranus — a revolutionary kind of aspect on a revolutionary kind of day. This is an aspect that might actually have a few sensitive people in a rebellious state of mind. I can see First Amendment advocates getting out all their pens, typewriters, mimeograph machines, photocopiers, printers and computers and displaying them in the backyard for all their friends to see.
The Cancer New Moon is July 8. That’s an exciting event, as it consists of a triple conjunction of the Moon, Mercury and the Sun in mid-Cancer, activating a world horoscope called the Thema Mundi.
Mars enters Cancer July 13, once again setting off the Aries Point (it then takes two more weeks to take the Uranus-Pluto square for a tumble). This placement adds more water, more heat and more of an instinctual quality to the astrology, and there was plenty to start with.
Mercury stations direct on July 20, and that’s the time to take your plans off hold and set them in motion.
Gather momentum as Mercury does — a little at a time, for about a week until you’re up to full speed in the rather extraordinary last days of the month.
Goddess Girl Venus enters goddessy Virgo July 21, and the Aquarius Full Moon is July 22 — that’s the same day that the Sun ingresses Leo. The month ends on a hot note — with a fully loaded T-square in the cardinal signs including Pallas Athene, the Black Moon Lilith, Jupiter, Mars, Uranus, the Moon and Pluto. The bold month of July 2013 does not go out with anything vaguely resembling a whimper.
Everything’s an Interview
At press time, the entire universe is holding its breath wondering what the Supreme Court will say about whether lesbian and gay couples can marry.
Skipping a rant about how a sexual liberation movement became a family values movement, SCOTUS is expected to issue its decision on California’s Prop 8 case and the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act early next week, just as Mercury stations retrograde and Jupiter ingresses Cancer. Yet the court has so many cases that it could extend its term into early July.
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Maybe same-sex couples will be able to get married by Elvis in Las Vegas. Photo courtesy of Viva Las Vegas Weddings.
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Justices were seen shuttling in their private jets between Las Vegas and Santo Domingo, experimenting with various marriage partners to see if they could tell the difference.
As for the decision — my guess is that SCOTUS will hand same-sex marriage back to the states on a technicality and strike down DOMA. But the court is full of surprises, and judges once appointed as staunch conservatives have an odd way of becoming freaky liberals. Plus, there is a strong argument for same-sex marriage to be made on conservative terms. If only Monsanto would invent a Same Sex Marriage product, it would be approved in five minutes.
A new documentary is being released about how the investigation of how the explosion and crash TWA flight 800 was a total farce. Several top investigators have come forward and given their testimony for the documentary, including a top official for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). Why the coverup? The astrology suggests that had the truth got out, it would have been a big problem for Bill Clinton’s re-election prospects.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 500 points in just two days, after the Federal Reserve decided to get out of the stimulus business.
In an editorial, The New York Times said Friday, “One plausible reason for the Fed’s announcement of the imminent end of its stimulative program is that it hoped to take some air out of asset bubbles that have inflated as a result of its prolonged easy-money policies. The stock sell-off seemed to prove the point. Assuming prices stabilize soon, the Fed’s statements could amount to a successful pre-emptive strike on nascent bubbles.”
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This is a person standing next to $1 billion in $100 bills. To see what $1 trillion looks like, go to this page.
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New York Times reader comments are often better than the articles. One reader in San Francisco wrote in response to this editorial, “The administration had almost $1 trillion to focus on shoring up infrastructure, education and other national needs. Instead, it chose to give away that obscene amount of money on giveaways to special interests. Let’s not pretend that the stimulus was money well spent or that the public was eager to throw more good money after bad.” [Note, a trillion is a thousand billion dollars.]
The Guardian published new information from NSA leaker Edward Snowden about how the U.S. and U.K. spied on the G20 diplomatic summit in 2009, just as a G8 summit was beginning in London.
The NSA (the National Security Agency, an American spy shop, which is the biggest in the world) set up bugged Internet cafes that intercepted email, installed key logging software to spy on delegates’ computers, supplied 45 analysts with a summary of who was phoning whom around the clock and eavesdropped on world leaders — the diplomatic equivalent of Lance Armstrong winning the Tour de France.
Meanwhile, Apple said it received up to 5,000 requests from local, state, federal, galactic and intergalactic law enforcement officials between December 2012 and May 2013. The company, like all companies, is barred from revealing how many came from the FISA court (which we covered last week).
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Photo: InsiderMonkey.com.
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The New York Times reported that the anonymity that research subjects are granted when they provide DNA may be at risk, as “the latest shock came in January, when a researcher at the Whitehead Institute, which is affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, managed to track down five people selected at random from a database using only their DNA, ages and the states in which they lived.”
Bank of America employees were told to lie to homeowners seeking refinancing, pretended to lose their documents, and forced them into foreclosure — and were given cash bonuses for doing so.
“In sworn statements added to a multi-state class action lawsuit against Bank of America last week, the employees describe regularly misleading homeowners seeking loan modifications and rejecting their applications for phony reasons. The employees allege Bank of America used the federal government’s Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP, to rake in as much federal money as possible before ultimately foreclosing on the homeowners the program was meant to help,” according to Democracy Now!
I Would Like to Thank the Academy…
A top Monsanto executive won the equivalent of an Oscar for genetically modified food this week — a guy named Robert Fraley shared the World Food Prize with two other scientists. Fraley was the mastermind and driving force behind Monsanto’s move into genetic modification of plants. He is now the company’s executive vice president.
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Robb Fraley, executive vice president of Monsanto, about to be consumed by a batch of GMO soybeans that he helped create. Photo: Monsanto.
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His name came up in the research for my article on the astrology of Monsanto, now on the cover of the new edition of The Mountain Astrologer [see press release here].
Fraley joined Monsanto in his 20s, promising to solve the problem of how to move genes around inside of plant cells. He had done post-doctoral research on liposomes, small fatty structures that are able to move freely through the membranes of plant cells. But the process didn’t work for moving around genetic material inside of plants. Still, Fraley turned out out to be a big asset for Monsanto.
Daniel Charles, author of Lords of the Harvest — the history of GMO foods that I used as background for my article — said that Fraley “had an instinct for power, how to acquire it and how to use it.”
One former colleague said that he “used to want to kill him” because he would visit every day and ask about the results of an experiment that would take two weeks, Charles wrote.
His “real skill proved to be organizing teams of scientists and driving them toward a common goal,” Charles wrote, adding that one former colleague described him as “the most driven man I’ve ever interacted with.”
He was a farm boy from Illinois who would “volunteer that bit of his biography to show his long-standing connection to agriculture,” but he had little hankering to be out on the land. Instead, he preferred cigars, beer, sports cars and shooting pool.
“The World Food Prize Foundation said the honor and the $250,000 cash prize would be shared by Robert T. Fraley, Monsanto’s executive vice president and chief technology officer, and two other scientists, Marc Van Montagu of Belgium and Mary-Dell Chilton of the United States,” The New York Times reported Thursday.
In response to the announcement, the Times quoted Eric Holt-Giménez, executive director of Food First, a food policy research organization in Oakland, California, who said the World Food Prize’s “growing obsession” with biotechnology “ignores the documented successes” of nonindustrial methods of farming.
Fracking Puts Pressure on U.S. Water Supplies
A new study has found that some of the most intensive hydraulic fracturing (fracking) operations in the United States are in areas where water is scarce: in drought-prone areas or in areas where supplies are already stretched by other uses.
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Field distribution water tank used in the fracking process of natural gas well drilling in DeWitt County, Texas, complete with life buoy and “No Swimming” sign. Photo by Eric Schlegel.
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Ceres, a nonprofit that works on sustainability issues, recently looked at 25,000 operating shale oil and shale gas wells. It found that 47 percent of these wells were in areas “with high or extremely high water stress” because of regular water use by industry and municipalities. In Colorado, for example, 92 percent of the wells were in extremely high water-stress areas, and in Texas more than half were in high or extremely high water-stress areas.
According to the American Petroleum Institute, the national oil and gas trade association, the “industry’s water use is small when compared to other industrial and recreational activities.” Yet although fracking usually is just one or two percent of states’ overall water use, the Ceres study notes that “it can be much higher at the local level, increasing competition for scarce supplies.”
Making matters worse, those scarce water supplies near fracking operations are repeatedly found to have been contaminated by the chemicals used to extract the shale oil and gas — reason enough to make bans on fracking all the more urgent.
Supreme Court: No Citizenship Proof Needed for Voter Registration
Illegal immigrants who want to vote in federal elections scored a victory Monday, when the Supreme Court said Arizona or other states can’t demand proof of citizenship from people registering to vote in federal elections unless they get federal or court approval to do so.
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Arizona residents who challenged a 2004 state measure, arguing that it discriminated against eligible voters, scored a SCOTUS win this week. Photo by: Joshua Lott/Reuters.
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The justices said states cannot independently change the requirements for those using the voter-registration form produced under the federal “motor voter” registration law, according to an article in Huffington Post. They would need permission from a federally created panel, the Election Assistance Commission, or a federal court ruling overturning the commission’s decision, to do so.
Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the court’s 7-2 majority opinion, said federal law “precludes Arizona from requiring a federal form applicant to submit information beyond that required by the form itself.”
“Today’s decision sends a strong message that states cannot block their citizens from registering to vote by superimposing burdensome paperwork requirements on top of federal law,” said Nina Perales, vice president of litigation for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “The Supreme Court has affirmed that all U.S. citizens have the right to register to vote using the national postcard, regardless of the state in which they live.”
House Passes Abortion Bill; GOP Member Advocates Fetal Masturbation
The harshest anti-abortion bill ever to come before the U.S. House of Representatives passed this week. It would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, the point at which many anti-choice activists claim fetuses can feel pain.
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Rachel Maddow can’t quite believe she just heard what Rep. Burgess said — and that he’s in charge of the House Subcommittee on Health. Image: video still.
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The vote was split mainly along party lines, 228 to 196. Last week the bill’s sponsor, Trent Franks (R-Arizona), ignited controversy with his claim that very few pregnancies result from rape — as if that is the only time a woman gets to have control of her body: after someone has already violated her.
President Obama has already vowed to veto the bill, and it is unlikely that the Senate will even bring it up for a vote. Similar bans exist in several states, however.
In response, Planned Parenthood has coined the term Gynotician: a politician acting like a women’s health expert by trying to force abortion laws that have little or no basis in medical fact.
One such ‘gynotician’, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) actually is a former OB/GYN. He voiced support for an even more extreme ban, saying that fetuses at 15 weeks “stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?”
Major U.S. medical bodies have refuted the claim that fetuses feel pain before the third trimester.
So far there’s no word on whether Burgess is planning to recruit Betty Dodson to conduct masturbation workshops in utero — or whether female fetuses are allowed by law to masturbate, too.
Physicians to Colleagues: Stand Against Guantanamo Forced-Feeding
Last week three doctors who teach at Boston University published an editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine calling for their medical colleagues in the military to boycott the forced-feeding of Guantanamo inmates who are on hunger strike. In addition, they are calling on all civilian doctors to actively support physicians at Guantanamo in taking a stand.
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Restraint chair used to force-feed Gitmo hunger strikers; a tube is snaked down one nostril and into the esophagus in what is reportedly a very painful process. Photo: Sgt. Brian Godette.
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“Physicians at Guantanamo cannot permit the military to use them and their medical skills for political purposes and still comply with their ethical obligations. Force-feeding a competent person is not the practice of medicine; it is aggravated assault.”
When authorities order doctors to force-feed competent prisoners, physicians become “weapons for maintaining prison order.”
George Annas, one of the three doctors who wrote the editorial, said in an interview on Tuesday with Democracy Now! that Guantanamo doctors tend to be young residents, and must assume false names. They are incredibly isolated from civilian colleagues, which likely makes it that much more difficult to refuse military orders, even on ethical grounds.
Hunger strikes are the only meaningful tool that prisoners have in getting needs addressed while incarcerated. It is not a suicide attempt, but rather a statement being made under extreme circumstances, with the understanding that death could result.
The prison-wide hunger strike at Guantanamo has entered its 136th day as of June 21. According to lawyers, at least 130 of the 166 remaining prisoners at Guantanamo are refusing to eat in protest; 43 prisoners are currently being force-fed through tubes. On Monday, for the first time, the Obama administration publicly identified the 46 prisoners at Guantanamo whom it plans to hold indefinitely without charge or trial.
“Ex-Gay Therapy” Coalition Disbands, Apologizes
It sounds like a story from The Onion, but it’s not: on Wednesday one of the most prominent coalitions of groups in the U.S. advocating “ex-gay” therapy announced that it is disbanding — and its president actually apologized to the LGBT community for all of the harm it has caused.
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Exodus International’s Alan Chambers with his wife, Leslie; he admits to pushing ex-gay therapy in years when he could not control his own same-sex attractions.
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The board of Exodus International voted unanimously to shut down and disband. In an official statement, the group claims they want to form a new group devoted to helping churches to “become safe, welcoming, and mutually transforming communities.”
“Please know that I am deeply sorry,” wrote Alan Chambers, the group’s president, in a written apology. “I am sorry for the pain and hurt many of you have experienced. I am sorry that some of you spent years working through the shame and guilt you felt when your attractions didn’t change. I am sorry we promoted sexual orientation change efforts and reparative theories about sexual orientation that stigmatized parents.”
In recent weeks, there has been a seeming rush of stories involving ‘the truth coming out’ in dramatic ways. This fits the pattern, the vibe and the astrology to a ‘T’. And here’s something you don’t hear from the more conservative or evangelical religious sectors often: in addressing Exodus International’s final annual meeting, Chambers stated, “What that means is we’re not gonna control people anymore,” adding, “We’re not gonna tell them how they should live.”
Unfortunately, a splinter group called the Restored Hope Network does plan to continue its crusade of control and “ex-gay therapy,” along with many of Exodus International’s former local affiliates.
NASA Unveils a Galactic GPS
A team of space scientists has taken sky mapping to a whole new level, with their new 3-D map of the visible universe. The map, encompassing 340 million light years — only a fraction of the known universe, which is believed to be at least 14 billion light years — was created from a collection of galaxy redshifts, observations of light emitted from galaxies as they move away from the Earth.
“In terms of moving — pardon the pun — pictures, this is by far the best I have seen among numerous motion pictures showing where we are at, literally and figuratively, in the biggest picture of all,” said Ian Steer, co-leader of NASA/IPAC’s Extragalactic Database project. You can watch the video, titled “Cosmography of the Local Universe,” here.
Edward Snowden’s Birth Chart and Some Big Astrology
Planet Waves has obtained the birth data for Edward Snowden from the state of North Carolina, and I read the chart in this edition. I also cover the big astrology of the week — the Sun-Jupiter conjunction in the degree of the zodiac that strings together many odd events of the past 12 years (28+ Gemini), the solstice and the Capricorn Full Moon. At the end of the program I give some highlights from my cover story on Monsanto in The Mountain Astrologer.
If you’re a blogger or a journalist interested in the Monsanto story, here’s a page for you.
Just a clarification — I say there’s one Sun-Jupiter conjunction per sign per year; that’s not quite right — what I mean is: every year there is one Sun-Jupiter conjunction, in a different sign every year.
If you love Planet Waves FM and want to contribute to our programming, here’s the link to become a member of Planet Waves FM.
Your Monthly Horoscopes — and our Publishing Schedule Notes
The June monthly extended horoscopes were published Friday, May 24. Inner Space horoscopes for June were published Friday, May 31. I recommend reviewing the previous month’s horoscope at the end of the month; you can see May’s monthly horoscope here. The Moonshine horoscopes for the Gemini New Moon were published Tuesday, June 4. We published the Moonshine horoscopes for the Capricorn Full Moon on Tuesday, June 18.
Aries (March 20-April 19) — It’s unusual that you can truly focus your energy inwardly, though that is where the planets are guiding you. Plenty of what you consider inward is rather worldly, involved with people, places and things. You now have an opportunity to subtract all of those external influences and go to a new depth of self-understanding. Take the time to do this in a meaningful way. You don’t need the opinions of others, and their presence is likely to distract you from the significant matters at hand. While you’re embarking on an extended phase where your most dependable source of wisdom will come from you, the present moment is especially rich with information and a new kind of curiosity. You have the chance to get to the bottom of some deep insecurities. Normally you address these by reaching out to the people around you, or distracting yourself with activity. Yet that never really answers your question. While you may not get answers over the next few weeks, you will be able to focus your deepest questions in a meaningful way and set an agenda for yourself. Good questions are more important than answers, because they will challenge you to be creative about your own most intimate thoughts. I will say this. You’re a different person when you feel safe and when you do not. Feeling safe allows you to get a handle on surface-level material, and thus go deeper. Yet that doesn’t happen very often, and now the door is wide open.
Taurus (April 19-May 20) — In much the same way that homes of many earlier eras were designed to be oriented on the hearth or the kitchen, the way to organize your life is from the center outward. To do this you’ll first need to determine what the center is. I will give you a clue: it’s the place where the heat is coming from. It’s also related to the theme, activity or mission you keep coming back to, even if you’ve made other plans. Said yet another way, it’s where you reach for the sensation of home on our wild, unpredictable World Earth. This is a powerful spot in your consciousness. There’s a chance that your commitment and passion may be veiled by layers of emotional material — denial, guilt, shame or some form of uneasiness. None of those can stop you, and it would be helpful if you make peace with that and therefore take away some or all of the power that those feelings seem to have. You have a right to devote yourself to what matters, and I suggest being vigilant toward anyone who would try to deny you that, or who has done so in the past. This may be a complicated scenario, involving the influence of one or both parents, their relationship and certain factors in the family environment. Then there is the sex connection. How do you really feel about the sex that you offer to others as a gesture of service, of your own free will? You now have a bold invitation to claim that as your birthright.
Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Both Jung and Freud associated money with one’s relationship to one’s parents. They had different ideas but suggested that we look to unresolved material with mom and/or dad when it comes to understanding our relationship to money. Your astrology is saying as much this month. You seem to be on a quest to step outside the constraints that are imposed on children, who are powerless to manifest wealth of their own and must always depend upon their caregivers. Once those caregivers are out of the picture, we either find our independence or we end up putting others into that role, which in a society dominated by money amounts to the power over whether we eat or not; that is the power of life and death. If you wonder why people are so weird about money, and why they treat it like the only power they ever had, exploring this line of discussion may offer you some insight. There’s also the question of whether we feel we’re ‘worth’ anything — worthy of love, worthy of decent work, deserving of having an influence; that theme will offer you plenty, because the question is up for resolution. The thing to remember in all of this is that you’re not a child. You are an adult with a fair amount of influence over how you feel about yourself, and over your own prospects for success (and the two are intimately related). I suggest you commit yourself to not allowing any petty hangups to get between you and profound, meaningful, smashing success.
Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Jupiter has entered your birth sign for the first time in 12 years, hinting not just at some relief from the out-of-control feeling that’s permeated your life for so long, but also opening the way to some significant breakthroughs. This is describing an atmosphere where many unusual successes are possible. Take a little time to get used to the new environment you’re in. Feel your presence in the world in a new way. As you decide what you want, remember how much you know, and put that knowledge to work. If you have any doubts they will be in the face of an abundance of information and opportunity rather than a lack. Everything is always possible, but sometimes certain unlikely things are right within reach, and you’re in one of those moments. One key is making sure that you set plans in motion at the right time. There is no rush. Initially, certain developments will come to you rather than you having to go to them. No matter how big or how promising your endeavor, consider the timing and the details carefully. Listen to your intuition and trust what it tells you. Mercury will be retrograde in your sign between June 26 and July 20. This is a natural moment to pause, to feel and to make some observations. Let the retrograde work itself out before diving into anything new and different. Important information is forthcoming around the 20th and you won’t want to leave home without it.
Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) –You are not clueless. Far from it, though you may be spending some days walking around feeling like there’s a lot you don’t know. That’s almost always true. What’s especially true now is that most of that information is available. It’s just that to access it, you’ll need to use some unusual measures, the kind that might not be considered empirical or scientific. One might be a sense of certainty that gradually works its way into your thoughts. Another might be discovering that you have the answer to every question you pose, as long as you stop and listen to yourself. Asking others or seeking information outside yourself might confuse you, especially if people you care about tell you that what you’re saying or thinking seems like ‘too much’. If there’s a ‘problem’ with being creative or having big ideas, it’s that there’s always someone with smaller ideas ready to tell you that yours are too extravagant. Therefore, be careful who you talk to about what you’re thinking, learning or discovering, because as powerful as it is, humans are susceptible to negative suggestions. Along the same line, I suggest you back off of being too encouraging or supportive of projects that are not truly your own, or that you do not at least have a significant personal investment in. Rather, be a source of inspiration and courage to the people you’re directly involved with, and who will trust what you think, feel and say — and who will value your significant contribution.
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — The many changes that come into your life include you stepping out in a bold new way, taking responsibility for your community and helping co-create your world in some special ways. Yet at the same time you seem to want to hide, to be invisible, to make sure that as few people as possible know who you are. It looks like you want to be counted on but you’re not sure about the commitment. You might have the notion that you don’t really want any unusual responsibilities, or to take any special risks. Yes, Virgo is one of the astrological masters of the inner paradox. Fortunately you have a few weeks to work this out, and make a commitment to yourself before things get really interesting. Here’s the thing to bear in mind. The astrology that’s guiding you out of your shell is a lot more powerful than the aspects that are drawing you back in. Plus, the thing about hiding out and not committing yourself to things you’re passionate about is more about your childhood than it is about your present life. Remember that there were some people who were threatened by how bold you could be, and others who set the example of how to be that outstanding person. So if you feel the impulse to be less, ask yourself who you’re trying to impress. If you feel the impulse to be more, to be free and to be truly alive, remember who your examples were — and who they are today.
Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — It looks like you’re ready to make some impressive career moves. I suggest that you not count on luck, no matter how lucky you’re feeling. I know there is a time and a place to ‘not trust your own strength’, and I don’t want to get in the way of your relationship to your higher power. However, my reading of your solar chart says that this is a time to think for yourself, and that means making decisions. The very most significant among them is what you want to do with your talent. This is partly about what topic and field of life you want to be exploring, and more to the point it’s about who and what you want to serve. You’ve long outgrown your professional life being self-serving. Yes, on one level this is about your success and making your way in the world. Yet now you’re at the intersection where your higher calling is to work in the public benefit, in a way that’s genuinely productive for the planet and for the community. If something doesn’t meet those qualifications, it’s probably not going to feel satisfying. What you need in your work is the feeling of family — both working with one, and serving one. This is less like the ‘mom and dad’ kind of family and more like the cool uncle kind of family. The difference is that you have more freedom and you’re recognized for who you are rather than who others think you should be. And that is a big distinction.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Many developments — in astrology and life, which illustrate one another — will help you feel a lot better about the present, and guide you to focus on the future. It seems that the past has been heavier than usual in recent seasons since Saturn entered your sign. Saturn often brings the pressure to get right with yourself, and to find your true direction — something that’s not especially easy amidst the chaos of the world as we know it. Yet help is on the way. Saturn stations direct in your sign this month, offering you the opportunity to use what you’ve learned and avoid making the same mistakes twice. Jupiter ingresses Cancer on June 25, which will help you shift your orientation from involvements with others to considering what you want to do with your life. You need to feed your vision of what is possible, and vow never to allow yourself to be drawn into a situation that is defined by boredom, pettiness or the mere obsession with money ever again. In the weeks and months ahead you’re likely to discover that you have the capacity not just for a spiritual level of consciousness, but also to live as if that were the one thing that’s the most true about you. All together, you will be able to apply some healing balm to the places in your life where you have been aching. That may be enough to get you into a place where you’re driven by passion and curiosity and a risk worth taking.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — Your ability to make contact with others runs in cycles. Yes, Sagittarius is supposed to be the one-pointed arrow of determination, though that has an unusual way of going off in unusual directions where the deepest layers of intimacy are concerned. You know what’s possible because you cycle there fairly regularly. Then you can enter some other realm, and what was possible then seems impossible and even strange to consider. Jupiter’s ingress into the house in your chart associated with intimacy and emotional contact will help stabilize this aspect of your life for a while. The cycles will, at least, slow down, or you’ll become aware of a much larger pattern that you sometimes lose sight of. One topic you can focus on is your capacity to receive. This is one of those edgy issues that many people struggle with in our nourishment-deprived society — and it can be frustrating when people are offering you something you want and for deeply personal reasons you don’t feel capable of taking it in. So, first, practice receiving. Accept what is offered to you without condition. Stretch your capacity to receive, which will challenge you to feel like you deserve the life that’s being sent your way. Notice how you respond when someone offers you the sex you want: observing that one facet of your emotional patterning will tell you a lot about yourself. One thing to be aware of: the more you open up, the more you will be drawn to bolder, deeper adventures. Get clear with yourself whether that’s something you really want.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — One theme of recent years is whether people can take your intensity. It’s not like you try to come on so strong — I would guess you’ve done a fair amount of toning yourself down, though to little avail. Pluto working through your birth sign coupled with Uranus cooking in the home and security angle of your chart, sometimes comes with the sensation that you live in a microwave oven. You need people in your life who have a large perspective. You need people whose wisdom exceeds the petty worries that so many obsess over, and that it’s so easy for you to obsess over. What’s dawning in your chart is the ability to recognize such a person when you see him or her. You might think that it’s impossible that you could ever have a meeting as equals with someone who can see life through a very large lens. I suggest you ask yourself why that would be, assuming it’s true. How do you respond when someone who is actually offering you something, someone who is generous and protective, shows up? In particular, the question of trust is one to focus on. You may be concerned that anyone who can offer you something can also take it away. That may be more power than you want to give over to anyone, though if you want to exchange with others in a meaningful way, you’ll need to address that question — which falls under the general rubric of trust. Now for the last question: when you have good reasons to trust, how do you respond?
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Being born under the sign Aquarius includes a sappy, sentimental side that can at times compete with your ability to turn nearly anything into an abstract concept. This would matter less were you not concerned which aspect of yourself is ‘right’ or the real you. Behind this little controversy is your awareness of a form of intelligence you can trust. It’s neither abstract nor sentimental; it’s equally emotional and intellectual but in truth it’s beyond both. That intelligence is telling you something now; it’s pointing you to a potential focus of devotion and sharing that may in many ways defy reason. When you follow this wavelength of wisdom, things tend to go well for you. You possess a depth of understanding that you don’t have to explain, a quality that others trust about you. But closer to home, this is something that you’re learning to trust about yourself. There’s a purpose to the social consciousness, the idealism and quest for applied intelligence of Aquarius, and that’s about the purpose of community: nourishment and healing. These are the areas of life where you seem destined to take on a leadership role. Humanity is a family, though it rarely treats itself as such. Your presence can get that quality moving wherever you go, particularly where you work. Do not be shy about setting the example. Even if it seems a little strange to people, count on the fact that nearly everyone is starving and thirsting for a world in which we actually take care of one another.
Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — I reckon the past month has been a nonstop frenzy with so much activity blowing through Gemini. However, with Jupiter’s move into Cancer (where it will spend one year), you’re being invited into some bold new adventures — ones that neither you nor I can predict. There will be many turns of the story of your life over the next 12 months, not just unusual ones but of a kind you’ve never experienced. It looks like you’re about to slip into the full stream of our weird, beautiful moment in time — that is to say, you’re about to be dealt into the game of life in a whole new way. I suggest taking two things along. One is your skill at pleasure-seeking. Rather than the mindless or diversion kind of pleasure, this is about bringing your passion to everyone and everything in our tired world. The other is the awareness that your wisdom and creativity are things that you can gamble on. You can take larger risks than you think because you have unusual spiritual resources to draw on. You always do, but Jupiter’s move into Cancer is one of the best things that can happen to a Pisces, especially the way the rest of the sky is set up. Remember that your life is not a matter of either/or at this point, of giving up one thing for another. This is a moment when you can have it all, though I suggest starting with what you want to create the very most.
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