Tag Archives: Monthly Horoscope

Of Aquarius, Water and Dragons

Dear Friend and Reader:

The Chinese Year of the Dragon began Monday, Jan. 23 with the Aquarius New Moon. The Dragon is the Chinese equivalent to the western sign Aries — high initiative and innovative. Dragon years are almost always memorable years in Western society, and 2012 will be no exception.

Meet Lagiacrus, the water dragon from Monster Hunter Tri. He’s a picky eater: organic-only and no red meat. To learn more about the game, visit this link at Amazon.com. Screen image of this magnificent water dragon is from Monster Wikia, to illustrate the Wii product. Wait — that’s what video games look like now? I have got to see this.

This is the Dragon year in the element water, which gives a yin or receptive feeling to the usually rather yang energy of this Chinese sign. (For contrast, the last Dragon year was 2000 — the Metal Dragon, which was a bit harsh.) It’s illustrated perfectly by Neptune changing signs just as the Water Dragon year begins, from Aquarius (where it’s been since 1998) to Pisces (where it will be until 2025). So here in the year of passionate water, we get some extra juice right from the start. (I’ll have a lot more to say about Neptune in Pisces in the Friday, Feb. 3 edition of Planet Waves.)

Speaking as a Dragon, I can tell you that one key to working with this energy is being conscious of how and when you push your luck. That is to say, Dragon is considered ‘lucky’, and those in harmony with this energy tend to thrive on taking chances. Yet this quality is best used with a touch of authentic discernment, for example, taking calculated risks, with a productive purpose — rather than stupid risks with no useful benefit to anyone. Yes, fun is sometimes sort of useful — but you can have plenty of fun and not create problems (or danger) for yourself or anyone else.

That said, the thing to do with that daring energy is, specifically, to dare. You might say that it’s about taking a chance on what you want. Most of what we consider ‘dangerous’ and avoid is really a comment on our psychology, and our perception — not actual risks. This is not the year to make excuses for why you’re not doing what you want, or why you refuse to even try. It’s the time to see those excuses for what they have been and what they have done to you. Most of why we might resist is contained in our mental patterns, and with that, we now have some help.

Also as of Monday, Mars turned retrograde in Virgo. In a word, this is about rethinking. You don’t hear the term “Mars retrograde” very often, but it happens. On the most basic level, Virgo describes how we think, and Mars retrograde is a high-focus investigation. Virgo is also a sign known for its intensity and even obsession (both described by Chiron rather than Mercury). But it’s a feminine sign, and those who try to express masculine energy through Virgo can be a little insecure doing so. Imagine how Virgo herself feels, taking up Mars as a guest for longer than the average vacation, eight months. The peak of that timespan involves Mars making apparent retrograde motion between Jan. 23 and April 13.

Between April 13 and late June promises to be an interesting time in the story of the world, and Mr. Cock and Balls treading backwards through the sign of the Virgin sounds like she becomes a woman in the process. Retrogrades are often recovery missions, about claiming lost energy, forgotten personal assets, and aspects of ourselves that threatened others when we were little. Every kid does this — to some extent figure out how not to piss off the adults, however meek or vicious the results may be.

Montauk facing south, toward Santo Domingo, winter 2012.Photo by Eric Francis. (Read Eric’s account of this particular wave.)

Children thus embark on a self-pruning process that can leave them feeling neutered as adults. This is the essence of the “little man” complex described by Wilhelm Reich. In Gestalt therapy it’s the essence of guilt. If we’re wondering where our energy, or curiosity, or creativity goes as we get older, this is the place to look.

That’s what retrogrades can help with. They can send us on a soul retrieval scavenger hunt. Mars in Virgo will be useful this way, helping us come to terms with what we think of as aggression (and might feel as self-aggression). For some, Mars retrograde in Virgo represents a calling to impeccability. For others, it’s a deep self-inquiry. For still others, it’s about healing desire and unhooking the many hangups that make it so difficult to express desire without guilt.

I suggest being mindful of the pattern establishment quality of retrogrades. The last time anything like this happened was in early 1965, when the script was cast for the thing called The Sixties that ensued.

Everything that happened during that spell of retrograde Mars in Virgo became ‘a thing’; it was etched into the realm of potential in such a way that stuck. The music, the war, the protests — the pattern was set, as the energy crested. In personal psychological astrology, this phase is a systems check for all of the high-intensity astrology that arrives in the late spring.

You may feel a palpable calling to improve your life, your health and your wellbeing during the next few months — and it’s essential that you proceed with any such quest gently. Warm up before you stretch, and remember, it’s not how far you go or how good you look, it’s how consciously you lean into the tension. This goes for body or mind.

Virgo is given to spells of harsh self-criticism without the help of Mars, or Mars retrograde. Given this it will be helpful to think of your feelings in terms of pleasure-guilt dynamics, and to consider any approach-avoid tendencies that you have in this light. Another theme I’ll be exploring with Mars retrograde involves aggression, self-aggression and what to do with anger. We need Mars energy in our lives, but the key is, we need just enough. Fortunately, Mr. Dragon will help us keep that in balance.

Aquarius is an air sign, though its symbol is a container of water (or in early renditions, a ruler to measure the depth of the Nile). The Water Dragon is assertive and expressive in a way that comes from a feminine core. This is the year when fortune favors the bold. The Dragon of Chinese fame has none of the baggage that it has in Western mythology; in China, it’s the very essence of good fortune. As mentioned, Dragon is the sign related to Aries in Western astrology — cardinal (high-energy) fire energy.

So, be brash, bold and daring — in subtle ways too.

Lovingly,

SCHEDULE NOTE — This is the only edition of Planet Waves this week. It includes the February monthly horoscope, long edition, which is below. There is not an edition Friday. We will see you again Tuesday with the Inner Space monthly horoscope for February. Don’t miss Daily Astrology & Adventure, and I’ve been been writing some short essays on the Reality Check homepage. — efc

NOTE TO CAPRICORNS AND AQUARIANS — I am indeed planning your birthday reports. No exact date on the schedule, but it will be soon after resuming the Planet Waves FM podcast, which has been on a one-month hiatus. — efc

Neptune in a Flask

When I was studying marine biology at John Dewey High School, I heard of this place called the New York Ocean Science Laboratory (NYOSL), out in Montauk — at the far end of Long Island’s south fork. That always seemed perfect — to have an ocean science lab out here on the far-flung edge of the North American continent, more than 100 miles out into the Atlantic Ocean. All kinds of complex aquatic systems exist around here — besides the ocean itself, there are inland lakes and ponds, streams, bays, harbors, wetlands and islands.

Grow room by the Sea — Algae stock grows in Erlenmeyer flasks at the East Hampton Town Shellfish Hatchery in Mondauk, NY. The algae provides microscopic food for infant oysters, clams and scallops (while they’re in the larval stage). After the algae matures here, the cultures are moved to much larger vats where the algae blooms under natural light — then a bunch of pea-sized mollusks have a feast. Photo by Eric.

I’ve looked for the lab many times on the ‘Net and I’ve never been able to find it — and I learned why today. The New York State Legislature cut its funding in 1979, before the Internet existed. So, it never had a website or a web presence of any kind, and there are few references to its existence. Even asking the locals, most only seemed to have heard of it.

The land was almost all sold to build condos, and most of the place (originally a former WWII torpedo testing facility) was torn down. The one remaining building fell into ruins. Then in 1986, someone thought to open a shellfish hatchery. NYOSL’s remaining structure was renovated and revived, and the Town of East Hampton (which includes the hamlet of Montauk) created a place to breed clams, scallops and oysters. So many of these critters are harvested from the water that the stocks were nearly depleted before World War II. So it makes sense to reinvest in the ecosystem.

With some help from the local newspaper, I tracked down the lab’s manager and visited there yesterday. It’s a gritty little operation, with a small staff. The facility is designed to get mollusks to mate, which they do by spewing their sex cells into the water — and then the staff collect the larvae. These are fed algae, which is bred first in beakers like the ones you see above, then in larger vats. Only the smallest fish eat algae stock; once they’re big enough, they are put out into a nursery or live on racks, in both of which cases they consume the naturally occurring algae in bay water.

Both Chiron and Neptune in Pisces are going to call attention to the oceans. The oceans are the immune system of the planet, and the wetlands are the spawning grounds where nearly all marine life has its roots. Chiron in Pisces is the essence of marine science — the spirit of inquiry, documentation and acknowledgement of the issues we face and the healing that’s necessary.

We’re going to need both scientists and facilities to understand and help us deal with the changes the world is going through. This has been true for as long as there’s been industrialization, though I can tell you from much experience covering polluters that they don’t like scientists. They don’t like research. The less that’s known about the effects of all this industrial activity and pollution, the better. Not everyone agrees with that.

The East Hampton hatchery is not a research lab; it provides a practical function, which is restocking the waters from which so many people eat and make a living. That’s a good start. I’ll post another photo to Planet Waves tomorrow.

Monthly Horoscope for February 2012. | Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Focus on your health. The potential problem I see is stress. However I also see an opportunity to cultivate habits and patterns of living that open the way to your vitality and longevity. Your best window of opportunity for this endeavor is from now through mid-April, when the influential planet Mars treks backward in Virgo. Let’s start with stress — which in this case seems to be a study in how you handle obstacles created by the need for attention to details. If you’re experiencing any kind of a setback, view it as an opportunity to solve a lot of seemingly minor issues that you want to work out anyway, only now you have an excuse. The whole theme of ‘rethinking’ is one that will help you relax into a truly creative space, which will be good for you. As for wellness opportunities — the story boils down to remembering that you exist in physical form, and physical activity is good for you, indeed essential to keeping your psychic energy in balance. You have so much voltage running through you at the moment that balance and clarity count for extra. I suggest you start by unraveling or undoing habits you don’t want — such as subtracting certain foods from your diet — and then gradually shift your momentum into what you consciously want to establish or create. This is a simple formula. As you liberate stuck energy and aggravating factors, more of your vital force becomes available for creative purposes.

Revolution. Revelation. Reality Check. has been published and is available. It is still available at the special subscriber discount price for all 12 signs, or the order price per sign. This year’s annual offers an extended written report plus 90 minutes of audio for each sign and rising sign. You will love it.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Einstein once said that imagination is more powerful than knowledge, which describes perfectly how the planets are speaking to you right now. You may be discovering that certain things you knew for sure are no longer as valid as you thought. Curiosity will save the day, as you can quickly shift from any sense of disappointment about what’s not true toward an inquiry into what is. Curiosity about yourself is high on the agenda, though this is the kind of curiosity you must answer in experience rather than in theory. You seem to have reached a new depth of relationship with your opposite-sex self, which implies experiencing both of your inner gender polarities as more distinct and vivid. They have a relationship to one another, and you have a relationship to them. Your creative quest involves diving into new and even improbable experiences of yourself. By improbable, I mean that if you have an experimental spirit and turn your sense of inquiry onto yourself, you may discover unexpected new inner territory. You’ll notice things about yourself that you don’t identify as, but which are no less part of your psyche. The question might arise: how far do I go exploring with others or physically experiencing what I desire? I would say, start where you feel safe, and work your way out to the edge of that. Test your boundaries. A significant aspect of this is expressing in words to yourself and to others what you want, for the pleasure of doing so.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — It’s a miracle that anyone feels safe on our planet, with all that seems poised to go so wrong. Yet actual conditions have minimal influence on one’s level of security or insecurity; the assessment is usually based on an internal metric — and becoming conscious of this is the theme of the coming few months. Let’s start with the idea that your level of fear is influenced by much of anything outside you. If the sources of fear were really external, our lives would be strewn with the nonstop disasters envisioned by our anxieties. In truth very little that we fear actually happens. Fear has its origins — and many of those are likely to involve family baggage. We come into this life with patterns that go back generations, though we prefer to think that our minds work in some original way. The fears you experience might be so directly attributable to others it’s as if they come tagged with the name of the source. For the next three months you have the opportunity to take out the trash — identify and make a conscious choice to let go of every insecurity that you don’t want. I know that fears are among the most persistent thought forms, though part of their staying power involves a lack of understanding where they come from. In any event, I suggest you define as a primary goal your desire to feel safe living here. By the way, this works out to be a leadership question.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Logic is one of the most powerful tools in the shed, though it doesn’t work for everything. I suggest you test your logic and also apply logic to test your conclusions, and see how both factors check out. Just remember, logic rarely points to what is possible. More often it points to what is seemingly impossible, not worth doing or not even worth trying. For that reason alone, it’s worth testing. Every significant human achievement was significant specifically because it defied the prevailing logic of its day. Some limit was exceeded; some purpose not previously recognized was fulfilled; someone saw potential in a way that nobody else had noticed, or at least dared to try. In a similar spirit, I suggest that you open your mind’s eye to your potential, to unlikely possibilities and to the vision of things that don’t yet exist. Consider how you want to shape your life over longer spans of time than you usually think about, say perhaps 10 or 20 years. Allow creativity to bring something new to the conversation when typical approaches to problem-solving don’t get you where you want to be. Challenge yourself to both seeing the limits of how you think now, and to conceive of your life in certain ways that project you into entirely new territory. The world is wider than you may think; places you’ve never been, and experiences you’ve never had, are waiting for you — no matter what anyone may deem as possible or impossible.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — One of the reasons that many Leos feel so good about themselves is that you’ve figured out that it makes more sense than feeling any other way. You take an almost scientific approach to self-esteem, rationally assessing the ways in which you both excel and other ways in which you need improvement. The world would be a better place if more people did this, though if lately you’re noticing that you fall short of your own standards, you need a new way to measure. I can think of two qualities to consider. One is in your ability to find common ground with people. That is an astonishing gift to have, because common ground is the substance of which cooperation is made. Second, you tend to project yourself into the community that surrounds you in a clear way that people can understand, no matter what point of view they’re coming from. They’re extensions of the same deeper property you have, which is your ability to hold people together like the Sun keeps its planets in their orbits. Over the next several months you seem poised to move into wider and more visible public roles that relate to both social and professional aspects of life. More will be at stake; bigger risks than usual will be on the line. Before you take your new role, I suggest that you really understand the truly unique gifts you have, so that you have full confidence in them when you need them the most.

Introducing the Planet Waves All Access Pass for 2012

Last year we offered an All Access Pass for subscribers who wanted access to everything we offer in a calendar year. The response from our All Access subscribers was overwhelmingly positive, and we are happy to once again offer one of our most popular products: the Planet Waves All Access Pass for 2012. One price gets you a subscription to the weeklies and all other products on Planetwaves.net through December of 2012.

Using one password for everything, which you choose yourself, you’ll have easy access to every product, including birthday reports and special audio recordings, weekly email service, the annual edition, and whatever additional projects we create. It’s a great discount on a year of our work.

We trust that this idea is a fun way to meet your needs, whether you use astrology for daily spiritual inspiration, therapeutic purposes or pragmatic decision-making. And it’s truly a valuable resource for students of Astrology.

With the All Access Pass you’ll receive:

– Tuesday/Friday Email editions of Planet Waves weekly content and horoscopes. Follow Eric’s weekly and monthly interpretations for all of 2012.

– All sign birthday/ascendant audio for 2012. This is almost like getting a personal consultation with Eric for yourself and any loved ones whose astrology you track. Each audio report includes a fresh perspective on current transits and how they extend into the future, along with a special tarot reading for that sign.

– Your choice of the 2012 or 2013 annual edition, all 12 signs. This book-length online publication includes written and audio segments, is accessible by password at any time, and always meets rave reviews by readers who refer to it throughout the year for its long-range, big-picture guidance.

For More Benefits of the All Access Pass, Visit This Page.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — There’s only so far you can take the concept of integrity before it ceases to be practical. In fact pushing things out to an extreme of impeccability can have the opposite effect, of making you (or any human) want to break some rules just for its own sake. With Mars retrograde in your sign, I suggest you beware of this kind of reactionary effect. Make some room in your relationships for some of what cannot be verified or judged. People need to believe some of their own illusions, and they can often do so harmlessly enough. I recognize that it’s sensible in some ways to judge people (including yourself) on the basis of whether they’re being strictly truthful, or whether they fit precise metrics of authenticity. Yet that doesn’t leave much room for imagination, which we depend upon to get through the day, every day. I suggest you view the people around you in a more idealistic light. See them for the good things they offer and make an effort to overlook what might annoy you. If you do this enough you’ll get better at doing the same thing for yourself. All of the flaws in the world do not add up to perfection, so if you’re looking for happiness, you will need to look somewhere else, or rather, look another way. Remember that much of what the mind sees is the mind itself. There are other approaches to seeing, though instead of wondering what they are, I suggest you open your eyes and look.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — How strongly can you identify with someone else’s experience? Or maybe the more accurate question is, how much do you want to? It would seem that someone in your environment is teaching you a lot — and has also become a powerful influence in other ways. This situation has been developing for a while, though it’s only recently that you’re noticing just how much the experience is helping you rearrange your perspective. In recent seasons, you’ve been investing lots of your energy into organizing your life, focusing on maturity and getting clear about what’s important to you. Yet it seems you’ve been trying to do this from an internal orientation, avoiding competing influences. Along the way, certain distinct elements in your outer environment have been playing a role that you may not have noticed till recently. Someone who others might think is too ‘challenging’ to be around has proven to be an inspiration, in particular, driving you to express your full talent and individuality. This is of course more than most people can stand for themselves — all that awakeness and talent and full expression of energy kind of stuff is scary for lots of people. You’re in one of those situations where your best option is to rise to the occasion and take full advantage of the situation. If you can handle some unpredictability and running a bit higher voltage than you usually do, you’ll get the benefits of a truly one-of-a-kind creative partnership experience.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Everyone wants to be popular, but not everyone recognizes the potential cost. Everyone wants a meaningful role to play in their community, but hardly anyone is willing to do the work. Everyone wants to be seen as someone with integrity, though few are willing to make the investment in themselves to deserve that distinction. At the moment you have all of this going on, and you may be wondering how much progress you’re making. I would propose that you’re in the ‘cleaning and scaling’ phase of a new relationship to whatever you think of as the public: your circle of friends, your immediate community or perhaps some wider audience. I suggest that as you go through this phase, you take an experimental attitude, rather than assuming any long-term successes or failures based on what happens in the immediate future. The situation isn’t perfect, but it’s clearly workable — as long as you don’t set perfection as a goal. If more things than usual seem to be going wrong, or if certain objectives seem to be slipping out of reach, that’s because you’re testing a number of things in practice that you had only worked out in theory. You’re also getting to experience how ‘human nature’ responds when you turn up the energy, and you’re learning something about group dynamics that for some reason was not obvious before. Meanwhile, if you’re looking for a dependable working method, try this on: be clear with people and they will be clear with you.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — Focus on your work and not your career. There is a difference, though it’s often forgotten. Keep your emphasis on what you’re doing now, rather than on the trajectory of what you intend to be doing, have decided to work toward, or where you’ve been previously. Let your experience only be relevant when it provides actual information you can work with. See what it’s like to proceed for a while with no ambition to be more visible, respected or even successful; rather, get into the Be Here Now experience of full presence in your immediate activity. That is where the real energy is for you personally, whichever way we might look at your charts. In the current version of the world, there is way too much emphasis placed on supposed success, on the technical side of the creative process and on this elusive thing known as fame. Where your charts are the strongest right now is on the quality of your creative or work experiences as well as the results you get; on the chemistry you have with your collaborators; and on being known as someone who does the job well, rather than being known for its own sake. As you focus on the present and your present efforts, you will gradually redefine your notion of success. You will shift your relationship to authority, including both your inner authority and those who seem to hold power in the external world. And when you proceed after this experiment, you’ll truly be your own boss.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — You are by nature an intuitive thinker. However, that’s another way of saying creative thinker. Yet creative is a matter of emphasis, with the emphasis being on noticing what you have not noticed before, or seeing what others do not; your apparent lack of logic often works to your benefit. You’re now in an extended phase of your life when the theme is how you think. You may be discovering that there is no such thing as ‘pure reason’, though it’s possible to ask reasonable questions. You may suddenly be able to tune into your perception and notice patterns that were not obvious before. This may seem clairvoyant, in particular if you don’t know how you reached a certain conclusion. Therefore, I suggest that you allow your mind to work in its new way, and if you’re wondering how you arrived at a certain destination, work your way backwards from your recognition to the facts that initially led to it. For the sake of credibility, you might want to leave some of your calculations in the margin, so that others know that there are steps you took to get where you’re going. However, don’t let them get in your way when you’re working independently of others. For your own sake, making sure that there are logical steps after the fact will help build your confidence in your observation skills. They may not seem important today, but the way the world is going, you’re going to be glad you have them the moment you need them.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Lately you seem to have your doubts about where you stand with yourself, though I suggest you give that a rest. You are, at least, becoming fully self-aware and determined to know the truth about yourself. This is an excellent start. I would caution you against listening to what others try to convince you of, particularly if a sexual or financial relationship has gone awry or turned negative any time recently. You still have a lot of your self-esteem invested in that situation — and it’s going to take some time to work this out. I suggest you think of this as a technical exercise that will gradually get results. If there’s a spiritual component, that might be about compassion and patience. Know that your personal resources are more valuable than whatever you may have invested in the relationship. Indeed, it would seem that there’s relatively little invested, in terms of actual commitment; there seems to be more of an entanglement that you now have the responsibility of working out. As when untangling anything else, you cannot push, and you have to remember not to pull too hard. Yet the thing to really keep in mind is that this is not a measure of your value, to yourself or to anyone else. You’re merely in a situation that is calling for care and attention, and that you will easily let go when the details are resolved — and when emotions settle down. You can help by keeping them as cool as possible.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — This month, Neptune arrives in your sign, to stay until 2025. It is rare that you get to say that a new phase of your life has begun. However, astrology also provides a metric. Neptune in your sign will shift your experience of yourself — and as a result, your experience of the world you live in. Yours is the most watery of the water signs. Yet there’s just one planet that’s directly associated with water — Neptune. It moves extremely slowly, and has been hanging out since 1998 in an angle of your chart where its best properties have been difficult for you to access. This has had two effects. One is that you’ve had to turn your sensitivity up, in order to compensate for what was not immediately available. You’ve had to make company for yourself when you were feeling isolated, and find softness within when there seemed to be none around you. I suspect that any residual sense of isolation is going to gradually dissipate over the next few months, and your relationships — all of them — are going to go through a phase of adjustment. The gist of that story is that you’re going to feel a lot more comfortable being who you are, and exist in a world that’s more your kind of climate. Others, in turn, will need to adapt to your being more grounded in your being — or rather, they will or they will not, but either way, you’ll feel more at home.

The Big Question: What’s so 2012 about 2012?

Leave a reply

Painting by P.C.Turczyn.

Dear Friend and Reader:

It was someone named Jose Arguelles who popularized 2012 as the time we would take what he called the leap beyond technology. Arguelles was not the first to point out the significance of 2012 — though he was talking about it as early as the mid-1970s. Frank Waters (in his Hopi prophecies) also mentioned it in 1975, as did Terence McKenna in Invisible Landscape. Astrologer A.T. Mann briefly mentioned it in his 1986 book The Divine Plot: Astrology, Reincarnation, Cosmology and History.

Jose Arguelles at the Babaji Ashram, Cisternino, Italy 2009. Jose is the one who introduced the world to the idea of 2012. He died earlier this year. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Yet it was Arguelles’ creation of the worldwide Harmonic Convergence in 1987 that got the cultural meme of 2012 (and the Mayan long count) going. The Convergence was based on the idea that the 13th baktun of the Mayan long count calendar would be ending on the winter solstice of 2012, and that it was time to start preparing ourselves for whatever that transition meant. How long is long? A baktun is 144,000 days; 13 baktuns add up to about 1.8 million days, or 5,125 years, which is one-fifth of a full precessional cycle (that is, the cycle of all 12 ‘ages’ in Western astrology).

Did the Harmonic Convergence work? I say yes — so far, the world has not been destroyed by nuclear war.

Despite that barely-noticed good news, over the past 25 years, predictions of both doomsday and spontaneous enlightenment have flooded New Age literature and bled into mainstream thought, though in all of that time, none of it has struck me as particularly meaningful. Said another way, I’ve hardly ever heard a 2012 narrative I could even vaguely relate to. Pretty much everyone knows that 2012 is an important date in the Mayan calendar, but hardly anyone can tell you what it ‘means’ without drifting into speculation.

Our sin-obsessed Christian culture, clouded by truly horrid visions from The Book of Revelation (sometimes called The Apocalypse of John) — the last book of the New Testament — always seems to be waiting on doomsday. However, Judgment Day is our shit — not that of the ancient Mayans.

The Harmonic Convergence of Aug. 16-17, 1987 was a global meditation for peace. I took part in that major event as part of a spiritual community, and it had nothing to do with the ‘end of the world’ or doomsday. To the contrary, we had our minds on getting the world out of the mess that it was in — not into a bigger one. In recent years, Mayan scholars and Mayan leaders have objected to the obsession with gloom and cataclysm.

“For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle,” says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies in Crystal River, Florida. To render Dec. 21, 2012 as a doomsday event or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is “a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in.”

The Western Astrology of the 2012 Era

That said, 2012 is going to be one of the most significant years that any of us have ever lived through. It’s really an era that spans from 2011 to 2016, and in truth it extends much further in both of the commonly known directions of time. Yet one year from today, we will note that 2012 was indeed a radical turning point. The Western astrology illustrates sweeping changes in culture and geopolitics, and corresponding profound changes in the lives of individuals. Most of the planets involved in the alignments were not known to the ancient Mayans — among them Chiron, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, all of which were discovered by modern science.

Detail of Venus transit of the Sun on June 5, 2012. This is a precise conjunction of Venus and the Sun, taking place in the astonishing month that spans late May to late June 2012 — the epicenter of events next year.

These are the gods of change, and for the next few years they are working in concert with one another, propelling us to wake up, pay attention and consciously advance our lives. While some will experience this as little other than a wild ride, we are being summoned to participate in existence as a personal event — and as a collective event. Yet that statement calls attention to what it would mean not to participate: to merely observe, to decline participation on the basis of fear, or to attempt to stay stuck in old ways of thinking. If you’re experiencing fear and chaos rather than a bold quest, then it’s time to update your files.

Collectively, we have arrived at a point of extreme contraction of awareness, denial, paranoia and surrender of our power. We are being smothered in our own technology. If we don’t do something about this, global conditions will get worse. It would be fair to say that we’ve arrived at a moment of potentially reclaiming what we’ve given up, and perhaps of claiming something new, but it won’t come in the form of an iPhone app. The thing about computer applications is that someone else has the idea and does the work; then we load them onto our device and they do their thing. When we follow the guidance of astrology, or with any other personal work, we become the programmer; we have the idea and must take the initiative.

The astrology you’re about to experience is a calling to personal responsibility and most significantly, to use what we have learned in all these years of study, workshops, yoga classes, many efforts at healing, self-improvement and personal growth that have become so popular since the 1960s. Now is when we put the pieces together, with a momentous feeling; we are indeed at a point of no return, whether we’re talking about the environment, civil liberties or going beyond paralyzing fear and judgment.

In short, it’s now time to decide what matters the most, and take action. Not in the future — right now. Here are the top five events that illustrate the changes. Each of them influences you personally. The following will give you an overview.

Uranus square Pluto

Uranus, photographed by E. Karkoschka et al., for NASA.

The defining aspect of our era in history, look to Uranus square Pluto when you’re trying to figure out how it’s possible that Arab Spring, the labor movements of Wisconsin and Ohio, and the Occupy movement all happened within a few months. There are many factors that make 2011 distinct in modern history, and 2011 was just the beginning. When Uranus and Pluto get together, we enter an epoch of revolution. The way that revolutionary movements start is that individual people stir to awareness, notice something, feel a need to participate, and then join forces. Uranus square Pluto combines the revolutionary nature of Uranus with the evolutionary power of Pluto, and focuses them into a powerful force for renewal and change. The last time we experienced anything like this was in the mid-1960s, when Uranus and Pluto were in a conjunction. Now that cycle is about to reach the exact first-quarter point, where we can put the many lessons of the Sixties to work for us. By lessons, I mean the many beautiful opportunities that era teased us with, and the many disasters we witnessed. Uranus-Pluto aspects are a mix of light and dark. Yet they always bring progress, especially for those who are willing to consciously indulge change and adventure.

Venus Transit of the Sun

Photo: A. Ayiomamitis.

One of the rarest predictable events in astronomy, this is a precise conjunction of Venus and the Sun — so close that if you’re in the right place, with the right equipment, you will be able to watch Venus trace a line across the Sun. In astronomy, this is the most Mayan thing about 2012, because the Mayan astronomers and lore-masters loved the cycles of Venus. Venus’ transit of the Sun is about expression of the solar feminine — that is, the side of the feminine that is not reflected light but rather direct light. Said another way, the Sun becomes Venus for a little while in 2012. Taking place in Gemini, this suggests we can begin to experience ourselves as more balanced in our masculine and feminine attributes. Most of the conflict that humanity experiences (and by that I mean war, torture and greed) has its deepest roots in sex, gender and homophobia. It is the combination of repression, inner division and fear of self that I believe leads to our tolerance of the violence we witness and experience. For those who are interested, we are approaching a rare, concentrated opportunity for emotional integration and gender balance.

Planets in the Water Signs

Neptune from Voyager 2. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

In 2010, Chiron began its ingress into Pisces (coinciding with the BP oil spill), arriving to stay in 2011 (this lasts till 2019). Last year, Neptune visited Pisces briefly, and takes up residence in February. It will remain in Pisces for about 14 years. In October, Saturn arrives in Scorpio. These water placements describe at least two things: our global water crisis, and our emotional maturity crisis. It’s no coincidence that many places the drinking water is contaminated with Prozac. That’s because many communities drink ‘purified’ sewage effluent — something that will become increasingly necessary as time goes on. Emotionally as a society we’re not doing much better, as we drown our sorrows at Wal-Mart and drink the somewhat less purified effluent of our parents and other ancestors. These important planets in the water signs — especially Neptune, the god of oceans — point to a get-real moment of emotional healing, indicating that our emotions are the heart of the matter where growth is concerned. They remind us that water is the heart of the matter where sustaining our bodies is concerned. The quality of the groundwater, rivers and oceans connects to our emotional state. Enough oil spills, nuclear meltdowns and fracking. It’s time to grow up.

Mercury Retrograde on Election Day

This is what Mercury retrograde on Election Day once looked like.

If you thought the 2010 election was crazy, and if you’ve been following the race for the Republican primary this year, just wait for the actual 2012 election. We live in an era when voter rights are being systematically narrowed down (for students, the elderly and the poor). The 2010 Citizens’ United case has opened the floodgates to politics being a wholly owned subsidiary of Corporate America. During the past six months we have been treated to a slate of candidates who cannot identify China as a nuclear power, who want to shut federal agencies they cannot name, who think gay people can be ‘cured’, who want the smaller, less invasive government to regulate every uterus, who want to eliminate entire circuits of the federal courts and drag judges before congress and who have racked up more sexual harassment and cheating than — okay I will shut up! Here is my point: Mercury stations retrograde on Election Day 2012. The only other Election Day in American history when a Mercury station (retrograde or direct) was exactly involved was 2000. We are looking at the potential for some huge scam or something really weird like an Electoral College tie. As far as I can tell, we’re about to go post-politics. We need to create something functional in its place.

Stardate 13.0.0.0.0: The End of the 13th Baktun

Sample of page 2 of what’s called the Dresden Codex — considered the most complete of the three undisputably authentic Mayan codices. The names of the codices indicate where they were kept originally. It is the oldest book written in the Americas known to historians, created by scribes who were copying much older documents. It’s believed to have been a gift of Cortez to King Charles I of Spain in 1519. It contains a lot of information about rainy seasons, floods, illness and medicine, as well as planetary tables — but nothing about the ‘end of the world’.

The Mayan cycle that got the whole conversation going is the X-factor in the equation. Obviously it is significant that a 144,000-day cycle is turning over, particularly involving some of the people who occupied the Americas long before the Europeans arrived. Yet there has been more speculation as to the meaning of this event than there has been grounded creative discussion.

We are fast approaching the point where the culture that grew out of the European colonies is not only no longer sustainable, but where many days it seems like the whole thing is about to collapse. This may be more of a synchronicity than a prediction on the part of the ancient Mayans, but their calendar is all about synchronicity.

Certainly something is changing in the nature of time and how we experience it. Technology does seem to be at the heart of the situation. Remember that when Jose Arguelles was coming up with his ideas about the path beyond technology, nobody had a computer in their pocket. Most people had never even worked on a computer, ever, much less had several of them in their house. So technology in many ways has run wild, and this is something we need to notice.

In Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch, there is a warning. I think of it as the Atlantis passage, and I’ve quoted it a few times before. “As I have said, this isn’t the first time your civilization has been at this brink,” God tells Walsch. “I want to repeat this, because it is vital that you hear this. Once before on your planet, the technology you developed was far greater than your ability to use it responsibly. You are approaching the same point in human history again. It is vitally important that you understand this. Your present technology is threatening to outstrip your ability to use it wisely. Your society is on the verge of becoming a product of your technology rather than your technology being a product of your society. When a society becomes a product of its own technology, it destroys itself.”

Lovingly,

2012 Annual Available By Sign — and Another Top Five Event

Dear Friend and Reader:

I’m back with two things — the first being a new installment of the Top Five Events of 2012 — and this is a hot one. It’s part of Revolution. Revelation. Reality Check. — the 2012 annual edition of Planet Waves, which by the way is available for general sale to all readers, by sign. Subscribers may still get the 12-sign discount rate.

Photo by Elizabeth Joyce.

So, what’s the big event? Mercury stations retrograde on Election Day. Exactly on Election Day. That is to say, right in the midst of everyone voting in the highly anticipated, so close it could be a tie, who the heck are all these weirdos, one and only 2012 presidential election: exactly on that very day, Mercury goes retrograde in Sagittarius. I know — I could not believe it either.

Notably, Mercury has only ever stationed one other time on a presidential Election Day — in 2000, when we had Bush v. Gore and the loser won.

Now, for the second time in American history, Mercury is stationing exactly during an election. What is this about? In this segment, I cover the basic possibilities: it looks like some kind of scam, such as an overt case of election fraud. There is lying and denial; and since it’s in Sagittarius the courts may be involved. Mercury retrograde in Sagittarius, square Neptune, has a bit of the religious huckster or confidence man to it. In that way that astrology can be bizarrely literal, this chart is the perfect image of the political landscape — and it is volatile.

What could possibly go wrong? Well, what could go right? We could get a wakeup call to civic involvement, and it’s on this note that I end the discussion: with a call to civic action. This presentation includes a bonus track — an interview with Planet Waves contributor Astrodem, a political consultant in Washington, D.C. Astrodem is not an official writer for Planet Waves, just someone who contributes his ideas about astrology and politics as a commenter. You will get to meet him in the bonus segment.

Even if you hate politics, you will enjoy this edition of the Top Five Events of 2012. The link includes access to all of the previous editions — and here is the ordering page.

Lovingly,

Extended Monthly Horoscope for January 2011. | Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — This year is about precision. You’ve been feeling this calling for a while, in particular since your ruling planet Mars entered Virgo this past autumn. Your quest may extend to your mental and physical health, your work, and many other factors in your environment. You may apply this as a drive for impeccability, integrity or even perfection. The problem is that humans are not creatures of precision; we are works in progress. Mars stationing retrograde in Virgo is cautioning you against taking overbearing positions with yourself: pushing yourself too hard, or trying to solve all your problems at once. You would best be served by an approach that works in layers. It’s a little like housecleaning — you sweep before you mop; getting the dishes out of the way is always a good start; you wash, dry and fold in order. I suggest you take that approach to personal improvement. Meanwhile, beware of over-emphasis on the past. You may encounter old issues that are calling for focus. While you’re doing that I suggest you adapt a ‘clean as you go’ approach with present-moment subject matter. Keep your current relationships, enterprises and work patterns as clear as you can. Proceed carefully and even a bit meticulously, so that you avoid creating new problems. Yet most of all, recognize that shifting your mental outlook will shift the way the world appears to you. If the world looks broken, consider whether that’s how you feel. And remember that in the spirit of pragmatism, your ultimate goal is wholeness rather than perfection.

Aries, your birth sign or rising sign, is getting a transit from the planet Uranus — which is a wild wakeup call, and a bold creative influence. I’ve recorded an hour of astrology and a tarot card reading for you. Learn more by visiting this page.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — There is something about sex that you seem to be trying to work through with every cell in your body. I will start by saying this. You cannot simultaneously exist in a world dominated by vanity, glamour and the appearance of purity, at the same time you reach for authenticity, healing and being clear about your desires. You must choose to exist in one world or the other. The first set of properties describes a way of life that is based on cloaking yourself in various illusions, while the second is about going deeper than appearances and reaching the substance of who you are and what you have to share. When we talk about sexual healing, we might well ask what exactly we would strive to resolve, correct or improve. I would propose, first, that you would benefit from being real about what you want, and noticing any fear or guilt that comes up as you name the specifics. Then make an inventory of the situations in your life where love and guilt are transacted as if they are equivalents. Last, check in where you are attempting to experience intimacy without vulnerability, or vulnerability without trust. These three things — intimacy, vulnerability and trust — together combine to form this thing we outwardly label ‘love’. The risky territory you’re exploring involves working out just that formula, but beware that to get there, you may have to move many lesser values out of the way. To accomplish that, you must be vigilant.

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

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Your relationship life has been nothing less than surreal the past few months, and you may feel like you’re experiencing a kind of replay of everything that you’ve been through. The question now and for the foreseeable future involves commitment. Relationships of any kind call for being held in a container made of agreements. For you right now, both the content and structure of those agreements is what is up for review. One particular relationship is calling for a complete revision of the ‘sacred contracts’ that are involved, some of which are not so holy. Once you start, this will naturally branch out into the other relationships in your life. As you embark on that you may notice that your current agreements contain all kinds of odd little clauses, riders and addenda that take you off the main point of what your relationships are about. These are silent expectations, requirements and many of those you can trace back to your parents and grandparents. It’s similar to how the deed on a house or piece of property can contain requirements on subsequent owners, based on agreements made 100 years ago. Note that the first of those supposed requirements where a relationship is concerned involves the concept of ownership itself, which is infused through nearly all of our ideas about ‘romantic’ partnership or marriage. This is the place to start asking questions, or rather, the first things to question are the obvious ones.

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

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — You must accept the fact that a relationship is changing, which does not necessarily mean changing for the worse. Actually, you get considerable influence over what form and direction the change takes, though you’re also being confronted by essential elements that are out of your control. Borrowing from the serenity prayer, you have to sort out the difference. Meanwhile, I suggest you review the history of the relationship. There was a turning point between 2008 and 2009. If the relationship in question dates prior to that era, study the developments at that time; otherwise, consider this date range as a turning point in your relationship history, in total. The changes that are upon you involve both the form of your relationships, and their content. In short, the old forms can no longer hold what you want to express, what you feel or what you need. They are simply not flexible enough. Yet you may not be aware of what new structure to use. I suggest you allow form to follow function. In other words, what is the purpose and the content of the relationship? Then based on that, how to have the relationship will be more obvious. Yet this is a bigger change than most people think. We tend to put the form of the relationship over the content or purpose. We try to fit people (including ourselves) into preconceived ideas about relationships and this is precisely what is changing.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — Focus on what is necessary. Aim your entire concept of beauty or creativity on efficiency — that is where you will tap your creative power. Do your best to expend every drop of your energy consciously. There is a feeling described in your charts, which is doing precisely what is necessary to get the result that you want. You will find that this takes less effort than you think; the operative concept is leverage — not you being leveraged, but you having the leverage. I have noticed that the value of ideas to get things done is grossly underrated, even by many people who work in the realm of ideas. You might consider something carefully until you have a good working concept of what you want; it’s possible that the idea you need will just come to you. In either event it will help you significantly if you delineate what you want to get done or what problem you want to solve. This way you will have a sense of whether an idea that just arrives, or an idea that you gradually brew up, is the one that might do the job. If you don’t define the puzzle first, you’ll be much less likely to notice whether you’ve fit the pieces together correctly. One other thing to be sensitive to is whether you’ve already worked something out. If you need something, check if you already have it. If something is puzzling you, pause and think back and remember if you’ve already solved it.

The 2011 Leo birthday report is 70 minutes of in-depth astrology plus a 20-minute tarot reading for you, exploring relationships, personal growth and your professional life. Visit this page for additional information.

______________________________________________________

Introducing the Planet Waves All Access Pass for 2012

With the All Access Pass you’ll receive:

– Tuesday/Friday Email editions of Planet Waves weekly content and horoscopes. Follow Eric’s weekly and monthly interpretations for all of 2012.

– Our best-selling special reports and projects including extended audio and eBooks. Past reports have included the Midyear Audio and Mercury Retrograde reports; 2012 is sure to include exciting, as-yet-unimagined offerings as we navigate the year’s adventures.

– Research/lookup service for astrology students. We will assist you in researching any articles you need for your astrological studies through December 2012.

The All Access Pass is a little like having a personal astrologer for a full year.

Or, think of this as a custom level of service. While we tend to be close to our clients, answering the phone and responding to emails, the All Access Pass is a way of enhancing that relationship, designed for those who benefit the most from Planet Waves, whether as a spiritual seeker or an astrology student. Once you sign up, we will set up your custom login identity and keep you posted as soon as any new stuff becomes available.

Use this link to place your order. If you have questions, please give Chelsea a call at (877) 453-8265 within the U.S. and (206) 567-4455 from anywhere else in the world and she will be glad to help you.

As always thank you for doing your metaphysical shopping at Planet Waves. It’s great to know that together, we’re building a truly unique source of astrology wisdom in a time of profound change.

______________________________________________________

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — This month, Mars stations retrograde in your birth sign. This is another way of saying Mars will spend a total of eight months in Virgo, about 10 weeks of which it will seem to be traveling backward. Mars is the most assertive planet, so this back-tracking is often considered challenging — but it serves a crucial purpose, for you and for us all. The planets seem determined to teach you how to use this mysterious, elusive thing known as your will. Everything you experience must be filtered through one question — what do you want? You will develop the skill of discernment, for example, sorting out everything in your life on the basis of whether it helps you or hurts you. You can learn new ways to correct what is not working about your life, and what you don’t like about yourself. Mars is a hot, sharp object, and it has no morals of its own. You therefore need to be the intelligence behind the changes, and cultivating that awareness is the whole point. Proceed with surgical precision, getting clear on the mental level, then checking with the deeper emotional level, and finally making your actual adjustments meticulously and carefully. Take the whole duration of the retrograde (Jan. 23 to April 13) to identify and correct the patterns you don’t like, and to cultivate the ones that you know you want and need. Take nothing for granted. There’s no such thing as too careful — unless you spend your days in hesitation.

The 2011 Virgo birthday report is ready! I’ve recorded 70 minutes of astrology plus a tarot reading for you, exploring how you’re working through family material, your use of spirituality, some new energy in your relationships and your professional goals. Visit this page for additional information.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — If you want to understand yourself, study the nature of fear. There are a few different kinds of the stuff, ranging from a kind of lurking anxiety to paranoia about specific things. Lately you may be experiencing the fear of specifics: of what might happen if you don’t take care of details, or correct certain flaws that you might perceive in yourself. There is a kind of microscope pointing into your deep hidden nature, and you need to use it carefully. Beware of obsession in any form, or of any violent thoughts you might direct toward yourself. By ‘beware’ I mean be aware, and be wary. Notice these mental patterns and see if you can trace them back to their early origins. Despite your laid-back exterior, you possess a kind of deep perfectionism, though it’s not always the healthy kind. Be especially cautious of what you think that others think of you. This is almost always incorrect, though your projections of what others might think is a good indication of what you’re signaling to yourself. If it’s not already clear, you must send yourself more positive messages, and you have plenty of material to work with. In the end it will come down to a question of which viewpoint is true. Which makes you feel healthier? Which leads to your being happier and more productive? This is indeed a time when you will make many improvements to your mental patterns and emotional habits; the question is how you go about it.

Your Libra birthday audio for 2011 is finished. Created outside next to an open fire, this reading covers the astrology for your sign in about 70 minutes (looking at career, relationship, home life and the many influences to change you’re now experiencing). It also includes a Voyager tarot reading. Visit this link for additional information.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — To what extent do you rely on outside structure to hold up your life? We all do, to some extent. I am always glad to have a house to live in and boots on when I walk outside in the winter. But it’s also essential to have a strong internal structure, so that you’re the person who is actually guiding your life, and whose spine supports your being. If you’re going to put any personal growth project on top of your list for the next year, strengthening your internal structure is the one. Nearly every important transit that’s happening to you is a commentary on some form of discipline, self-mastery or being conscious of the boundaries of your life. These serve a purpose: to help you contain, cultivate and direct your creative energy. You may feel like you have so many changes to make that you’re overwhelmed at times. You have a feeling for how much territory you’re going to cover before these particular processes are over, but your inner workings also have significant momentum. You’ve achieved more than you think, though at this point there really is no looking back except to check in, briefly, with where you started. Trust that you have a solid beginning. One of the next places you’re going to be directing your energy is your reputation. The question is, are you known for who you really are, or is there something else going on? One of the themes of 2012 for you is impeccability, which in this instance translates to absolute authenticity.

Hello Scorpios! Your 2011 Birthday Report is ready. It’s about an hour of astrology, plus a 20-minute tarot reading. It’s hot with transformational energy. I focus on your ruling planet Mars, your imagination and desire nature, and a phase of solid achievement. Please check this page for more information.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — I suggest you use imperfection as your teacher. Since perfection doesn’t exist except as a concept, you need to put to good use the things you perceive as ‘wrong’ with yourself. What’s interesting is that what you perceive as being a problem and what you perceive as being your best assets may be very close together, so close that they are inseparable. You may notice, for example, what is ‘imperfect’ about your body just as you notice your own beauty. You might observe that you’re in good health but before you have time to appreciate that, you may be annoyed by the one or two persistent problems you have — and the negative can have a way of dominating the discussion. It’s like the small issue gets your attention and obscures your perception of everything else. Obviously this is not the way to make progress, especially if you want to develop your talents, be of service and feel better about yourself — all things that are eminently possible right now. You’re being challenged to work with a functional standard of quality and monitor your judgments of what is good and what is not (especially about yourself). Yet most significantly, you need to develop a sense of perspective. Perfection may not be a value, but improvement certainly is a useful one. I often think of what my old friend Melinda scrawled into my high school yearbook: Someone is not a true artist until they can see the flaws in their own work.

The Sagittarius 2011 Birthday Report is ready. It’s about an hour of astrology, plus a 20-minute tarot reading. Sagittarius is encoded with a sense of cosmic mystery, and the recent, hot eclipse activity in your sign will continue unfolding for the next 6-12 months as you journey. Visit this page for additional information.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Faith is one of the most difficult-to-grasp concepts, but as an actual thing in the world, it’s fairly easy to see. And it’s what you need to be the most vigilant about now. Your solar charts suggest that you’re having a crisis of faith in yourself, so you may notice this quality more by its absence than by its presence. This will work — as long as you recognize what’s going on, and go to the next step. One thing I can tell you about faith is that it comes from inside you. If there is an external source, then by my definition anyway, it’s not faith. Therefore, seek that internal source of connection. At the same time, you seem to be in a colossal struggle to work out what you believe: about life, about yourself, and ultimately about what is possible. You may be feeling the effects of disappointments relating to prior plans, or a sense of failing to meet your own potential — and these may be influencing what you believe is possible. Let’s stick with that for a moment. If what was possible in the past is any indication of what is actually possible in the future, then humanity would have made no progress on anything, ever. What is possible today is, specifically, what was not possible previously. Therefore, consider what seems impossible today as an indication of your true potential. If you can gently notice where you lack faith, you’re halfway to being filled with it.

Happy birthday! There will indeed be a Capricorn audio birthday report! Watch your email or check this space for additional information in the next edition.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — For the next few months, you’re going to be working out the details of a partnership that may have you going over old ground. This is not about backpedaling; it really is about resolving unfinished business. The good news is that once this phase ends, you’ll be able to proceed forward with actual courage and confidence. The lessons you’ll learn include the nature of commitments and what it means to get into them (and out of them), and how much care you must take to ensure that the fine points are really what they should be; and a big wake-up to the power you have when you step forward with your independence rather than thinking you need others to be involved in every decision. What seems like a review will really be a planning phase for a period of your life that I would describe as a period of achievement. There is a warm-up to this phase, and you’re in it now. The more you have a grasp on the history of recent years (and some long-gone ones) the more successful you will be. In the most positive sense, your success comes down to one question: knowing what you want. That, in turn, breaks down into several subtopics, including knowing exactly what would get in the way of that awareness. In the process, you will map out your psyche and the maze of your life, and this map will be an extremely useful tool as you progress forward.

To order Revolution. Revelation. Reality Check., your full-length 2012 reading including written and audio segments for Aquarius, please go to this link.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — Whatever that thing you’re most dedicated to, that is who and what you are. It’s not that you have to identify with it, but rather that you are free to do so. Remember this. There seems to be a healing process at the heart of the matter. There seems to be something about sex and your sexual identity, and how you contain and express your energy. And you’re feeling a calling to absolute authenticity, which includes giving yourself the space to be yourself. If I had to assign one theme to the next four seasons, that’s the one: hold that space open where you are free to be you. Imagine a large fire in the middle of the space, which defines the room you have to move around, and provides both an energy source and a focal point for your existence. Holding open space to exist may have the feeling of taking back territory. By doing something positive and assertive you may get the sensation that you’re doing something negative and even wrong. No doubt you’ve been through this territory once or twice (or more) but it’s easy to forget. This is one reason why I suggest you think in terms of defining your space (rather than defending it). There is room for you on this planet. There is room for you to be different, and most of all there is room for you to fulfill your purpose. In the coming four seasons, however, you’re likely to graduate to something even more powerful: living on a mission.

To order Revolution. Revelation. Reality Check., your full-length 2012 reading including written and audio segments for Pisces, please go to this link.

Your Astrological Guide to Thanksgiving

Leave a reply

Dear Friend and Reader:

Before we get into the month-ahead themes, the astrology of the next few days is so interesting that it calls for some special focus. For many people, Thanksgiving (in the United States, held the last Thursday in November) is a family holiday, and family environments are often emotionally challenging. This may literally involve brain function: encounters with people in our family of origin tend to light up old neurological pathways, and grown adults can have reactions similar to small children when they encounter their relatives. This can be confusing, because you might feel like one person before you walk into the door and another person standing in the front foyer. In fact, for some this is so intolerable that they either avoid their family, or have grown so far from their beginnings that no meeting is possible. This thing we call ‘drifting apart’ is often a truly healthy thing.

Artist’s rendition of what we think Thanksgiving is supposed to be like. This never really happened, and these people never actually existed.

Our moment of astrology could shake up many longterm patterns, fixed concepts and beliefs, and we’re standing in one epicenter of that process right now. Mercury stations retrograde at 2:19 am EST Thursday morning, so it will be halfway between standing still and taking its first slow steps backward for a retrograde that goes through Dec. 13.

When Mercury stations, it’s like a mental reversal of magnetic poles. All your brain cells thought that one direction was the positive pole and the other one was the negative pole, and that can reverse. The result can be an extended moment of disorientation. If you know it’s happening, that puts you at a psychological advantage over someone who has no idea at all.

I keep hearing that the topics most people avoid discussing with their family involve religion, politics, sex and money: your basic taboo subject matter. Those rules just might be thrown to the four winds. So if you’re dreading seeing family members, this holiday might be a lot more fun than usual. Even the most ordinary social environment could become wildly interesting.

This Mercury station in fast and loose Sagittarius looks like a case of astrological Tourette’s Syndrome: a moment when it’s possible to open your mouth and state the truth. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself saying what you really think, not caring what anyone else might have to say about it. I suggest you skip the regrets and instead focus on how funny or meaningful it is that you (or someone else) just blurted something out, because it was the thing to say. If you’re not hanging out with others today or this weekend, it’s an excellent time for an introspective adventure. Whether you’ve got a full social calendar or nothing much going on, I suggest you consciously make some time to be alone. Sagittarian energy is always an invitation to adventure; even a seemingly modest trek somewhere could be a lot of fun.

Mercury stationing is followed up by an eclipse of the Sun in Sagittarius. This takes place at 1:09 am EST, less than 24 hours later. Thanksgiving dinner is sandwiched between these two events. An eclipse can have the feeling of pressure building, needing to be released. There is invisible tension in the air, and often the sensation that you want it to burst. This can distort perceptions and your sense of proportion — be sure to do a little reality check. Perceptions are just that; they don’t always represent the truth.

The social and political environment is rather amazingly different than it was this time last year. Traveling back in time, in November 2010 we had just gone through the midterm election, wherein the Tea Party had grabbed a bunch of congressional seats and governorships, and it looked like old-guard conservatism was finally going to save the world. That was before the Tucson shooting, Fukushima, Arab Spring, the uprisings in Wisconsin and Ohio, a wave of government defaults across Europe, the Occupy movement and a haze of pepper spray drifting from coast to coast.

What a difference a year makes. Today, there are protests in the streets, a sense of social upheaval and no promise that economic conditions are getting better. Yet to the extent there are going to be improvements, we now have permission to believe that we might have an influence, and that individual change counts for a lot. The time has come for a new conversation, and the astrology of the next few weeks is all about that — no matter who you choose to have that conversation with. Remember, you can learn a lot from the people you agree with the very least. So keep your ears open and remember, no matter how asinine an idea someone utters, there’s always someone else who thinks it’s brilliant.

In true Sagittarian spirit it would be a good idea to have a thick skin and your sense of humor ready. I don’t suggest you try to convert anyone; rather, the times are more appropriate for being yourself and seeing how that feels. That always makes an interesting experiment.

Lovingly,

Note to Readers: There will not be an issue Friday in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday for our staff. We will return Tuesday, Nov. 29.

A Month For Ideas With Lives of Their Own

We begin the last month of 2011 in transition: between eclipses on the Gemini/Sagittarius axis, with Mercury retrograde in Sagittarius, and many planets cautioning against mental obsession or overload. The energy in the sky is pouring in from the mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces), which are all about ideas in motion; in this setup, ideas that seem to have lives of their own.

Photo by David Shankbone.

Here’s how that looks. Through Dec. 13, Mercury is retrograde in Sagittarius, which is challenging many conventional beliefs, religious concepts and notions we may have about the world. This is happening at a time when the world itself is changing fast.

Anything with strong Sagittarius in its astrology is going to want to make its point, whether that point makes sense or not. If ideas are truly meaningful to you, if concepts matter to you, it would help if you check your evolving ideas against the available facts. Mercury will retrograde past many slow-moving points (most of them newly identified by science) and every day could come with a new sense of discovery.

Following the Sagittarius partial solar eclipse of Nov. 25, there is a total eclipse of the Moon in Gemini on Dec. 10. This might come with a few too many words to make sense of anything much. It would be a great idea to conserve your words and not talk away your intentions. If you have something to say, focus on writing; if you have important conversations, make sure you take notes, or all the information could evaporate. (Note, with many planets hanging around the Galactic Center, this ‘evaporating idea’ phenomenon may be in full force.)

Your best ideas (which would include longterm plans, or a full-on revisioning of your life) will take on a life of their own, if you cultivate them carefully and consciously. What’s growing on the vine are not your garden variety notions of what might be possible, but are more like high-potency hydroponic philosophies that will have extra influence.

Mars is a longer visitor in Virgo, where it will be through early July. On Friday, it’s in a close aspect to the eclipse, which is suggesting that you take the time to get your facts straight, know what you want, and subject your own ideas to some scrutiny. That doesn’t mean analyze them to death (which is a possibility with Mars situated as it is in Virgo) but rather that you ask questions and do your best to answer them. Mars in Virgo square the Lunar Nodes is deeply introspective and it cautions against harsh self-criticism. Try not to worry whether an idea or plan is good enough. Rather, relate to it consciously and see where that takes you.

One thing to study carefully are interconnections of any kind. There is something about the charts these days that suggests that looked at one way, anything could seem like a conspiracy, or looked at another way, it’s obvious that all life and all people are connected. Look closely at the ways people support one another in ‘failure’ and in the futile resistance to evolving their knowledge and beliefs. If you’re surrounded by people who seem stuck and are affirming one another’s stuckness, note that carefully and see where you fit into the pattern.

Zuccotti Park the night of Oct. 1, 2011. Photo by Eric.

To what extent are you either relying on unproven assumptions, or unconsciously holding onto assumptions? Whose example are you following when it comes to being a ‘better person’? Does your drive to ‘improve yourself’ do just as much to drive you nuts? Among other topics, theses are some of what come up for review.

We are alive in a revolutionary moment. We know that this is long overdue. Quite literally anything could change, and many things we’re not expecting will happen before our eyes. Remember that this will not be a pleasant process for everyone. For many, their sense of safety is the direct result of clinging to what they believe. When facts come along that challenge those beliefs, the result can be a bunch of conflict.

At the moment, this is optional, and you can get the hang of reassessing your beliefs as a voluntary experience. As we move through the next six months, this will have an increasingly compulsory feeling, as the beliefs that no longer serve us collapse on themselves. You can avoid this by continually updating your files, and asking yourself whether what you believe 1) serves you and 2) is actually true. Most of our dysfunctional beliefs come in the form of ‘I’m not good enough’ or ‘I’ll never get it right’.

You can go far beyond this struggle, however. Keep your focus on your inner source of inspiration, and notice what demonstrates itself to be valid and real for you over and over again. The truth does not need any help from us to be itself. But it helps a lot if we get out of the way.

Mercury Retrograde — Eclipse in Sagittarius

The new edition of Planet Waves FM is ready. This week I describe our exciting week of astrology, which features Mercury stationing retrograde and an eclipse of the Sun, as well as our current moment wherein the Sun has just entered Sagittarius and is making all kinds of aspects to big planets.

I sort through this astrology with you, and then look at the accompanying world events — much of which has been focused on the Occupy movement and most recently, the UC Davis OC gas (pepper spray) incident that is shaping consciousness right now. What does this say about the nature of our moment in history, and the nature of our human reality?

Extended Monthly Horoscope for Dec. 2011 | Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Many factors have been pushing you to change your mind. I don’t mean make a new decision about something, but rather understand your way of thinking and then revise key elements of your thought process. You do have a way of getting split down the middle; different points of view can have the same apparent value, when really that’s not true. Over the next few weeks, you’re likely to have experiences that point out this fact specifically: there was something you were missing, and you’re going to get a good look at what that was. This comes with a clue. An issue you were stuck over, which seemed to be on the level of your mind, turns out to be about an emotional hang-up. By that I mean an attachment to the past of some kind, which was obscuring your view of the present. Once you get your emotions out of the way and can assess the situation from a mental or analytical point of view, you will suddenly see a distinction much more clearly, and understand the ways your attachments to how things were was blocking your perception of how things are. In short, the time has arrived for you to participate in a larger world, on adult terms, rather than a small world following the rules of a child. Look around and notice how many of your peers still live by the rules of the schoolyard, a condition you can no longer abide.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — The time has arrived to tighten up your act. I mean your whole act — there is no point practicing your singing if you don’t also work on your dancing. The issue may manifest initially as a desire to get your financial life in order. That’s a kind of ruse. What you’re waking up to is that you have two separate value systems that are in conflict with one another, and it’s time to make some choices. It could be something as simple as the conflicting belief pattern that on the one hand believes you want more money, while simultaneously thinking that money is evil, or that people who have money are evil. Both of those beliefs cannot be together in the same room, and you may have a few of those. While you’re working that one out, there is something unusually powerful in your chart right now that describes putting your whole identity into whatever you do creatively. Your creative process is not about choosing one thing at the expense of others, but rather about an ethic or method whereby you put your whole self and all of your talent into everything you do. Again the theme is about getting away from the sense of having a divided character, which is the sensation of any one part of your life competing with any other part of your life. You are one person, experiencing one whole existence. Experiencing this potential may seem daunting, though it’s simply a true fact.

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

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — This is a special time in your life, though you do have a tendency to forget. The focus seems to be on your relationships. Yet most of what we describe as relationship issues are almost always personal material that is projected into the relationship. It’s easy, indeed, too easy, to get confused by this, and a number of factors could lead you down this path over the next few weeks. The question of why you want relationships, and the role of other people in your life, is a deeply personal one. In truth, it has nothing to do with other people; the conversation begins and ends with you, and through that conversation you set the terms of what you want to share with the people around you. In fact, that’s a great way to state the question: what do you want to share with them? Ideally, that would be your most absolutely real self, even as this changes and evolves day by day. The most significant thing you’re sorting out is what I will call the mutual fantasy issue. Often, people have relationships not with actual others, but with a character they’ve made up who is based on someone they are with. The first step in getting out of this is presenting yourself to others as you are. The second step is doing your utmost to perceive who someone else is, then working with the basic facts that this presents. Just remember, this is not about a relationship — it’s about you.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Everyone has what seems to be splits in their psyche, at least until they get a handle on that illusion. Many times, you live in a polarized world, where there are two sides of the story, two ways of looking at life and sometimes where you seem to inhabit two (or more) separate worlds simultaneously, which have little to do with one another. Underneath that sensation is an underlying emotional reality, which dates back to some experiences that shaped your perceptions in very early childhood, or while your mom was pregnant with you. These memories are veiled; they exist in one of those ‘worlds apart’ that slips into your awareness from time to time. Pay attention to those experiences this month, including what comes through in very early memories, stories you hear from others about your distant past, and what comes through an especially thin veil between dream consciousness and waking consciousness. Be on the lookout for memories associated with your medical history, which in the industrialized world begins with birth and early visits to pediatricians. If your family was into faith healers, notice your memories and feelings around them. Meanwhile, as you dance around these realms, you may be flooded with the sense that you have outgrown your own mind, which would be a beautiful development. Your consciousness is expanding, your perception is encompassing more and more, and the present moment will eventually swallow the past like a puff of smoke disappears into the air.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — You can finally forget what you think other people think and explore your own creative ideas and erotic desires. There’s a reason why it doesn’t matter what other people think, which is that everyone has their own version of what is too weird to talk about. You can be confident of this. What stands on less solid ground, indeed, more of a swamp, is how comfortable others are with their own ‘weird’ side, but this isn’t your concern. Stretch into your most creative reality, going past the taboo threshold and into space that feels new and daring. One way or the other, most creativity or passion starts in the mind; we experience most things in consciousness first, and then follow up in the ‘real’ world. Notice if you run into the notion that ‘this makes a great fantasy, but I don’t have to do it in real life’. It may be true that you don’t have to experience something, but do you want to? And if you do, what’s stopping you? Chances are it will be some form of, what would Mother think? That’s a great place to get, because once you’re there, you’re standing at the point of transcending someone else’s idea of who you are and directly entering the space of who you are. You’re not a child. Your consciousness is yours to guide as you wish. Often we don’t find that out until we do something about it: something daring and fun that’s supposed to be a little embarrassing.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — Does the past ever go away? It does, when we have a more interesting vision for our lives, but even then the past can be one of the most important teachers there is. If you find yourself caught in old emotions or beliefs when what you want more than anything is to move forward, I suggest you stop and make the process fully conscious. Perhaps instead of resisting the past you can take yourself there fully. This might be an easy time to do that, with the holidays coming up. If you have any commitments or plans involving family, turn it into a fact-finding expedition rather than an expedition. Bring your camera and digital recorder. Notice the things you normally overlook. Even if you don’t have family contact during the holidays, I suggest you go exploring the places and if possible, the people of prior decades. The place to pay special attention is your father’s side of the family. In the lives of many Virgos this is an especially critical area of life to resolve, and it’s been burning up the planets lately. I would propose to you that the past does not stay the same. Our perception of it changes, there are things we don’t know, and subsequent events (and generations) influence the meaning of things that seem long since gone. So I suggest you probe as deeply as you can, with an open mind. One message of your charts right now is that the way to the future is backwards.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Most of what we hold onto, or what holds back our progress, is rooted in the emotional level, but sometimes it goes deeper. You might think of that as the karmic level, where the patterns of the very distant past are held. These are the patterns that keep repeating, the ones you cannot seem to control. They might feel like wheel ruts or grooves worn into stone where water collects and flows. Freeing oneself from these kinds of patterns can feel extremely vulnerable and disorienting, which is why we don’t do it. Yet you’re reaching a point of inevitability. You’ll know you’ve arrived there when you feel a sudden shift in your environment, which you may experience as the sensation of density or feeling trapped in a home situation or emotional state. That may be followed by the impulse to liberate yourself, potentially something so impetuous that you care about nothing else. You may not have time to even consider that reaction. Then there is one last step, which is coming to terms with the pattern as something within you that needs to change. The way this process looks is like an evolutionary fire. You might feel the sensation of having your identity totally consumed, something like a caterpillar feels like in its cocoon before it melts into the substance that becomes a butterfly. There is little point fearing something that is inevitable; the question is how you can facilitate your experience as you transform yourself from one who crawls to one who can fly.

Your Libra birthday audio for 2011 is finished. Created outside next to an open fire, this reading covers the astrology for your sign in about 70 minutes (looking at career, relationship, home life and the many influences to change you’re now experiencing). I then do and offering a tarot reading that looks at other subjects from a the different perspective that tarot offers. Visit this link for additional information.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — The word is precision. To be precise, that’s the word between now and July 3, 2012. Precision applies to three things mainly: desire, decisions and emotions. Your quest is to find out precisely what you want. At all times, know what your options are, and count as a good day any day where you have at least two choices in any matter. Finally you must direct your emotions with precision, at the right temperature, particularly toward friends and associates — but especially toward yourself. All of this would fall under the general heading of intentions: knowing them and using them with discretion. That said, it would be a mistake to be too much of a hard-ass, and that is a real risk. Many of the most nourishing and profound developments in life come from a mix of discipline and creativity. While Mars, your traditional ruling planet, will soon be retrograde in Virgo, Chiron is in Pisces, a water sign similar to your own. That means indulging the part of your mind that moves in three dimensions; that engages with the world intuitively; that goes beyond the facts and details into a kind of visionary space where your mind creates something new. As Neptune enters Pisces early next year, that becomes even more meaningful. Precision is therefore the vehicle, but your ultimate destination is disciplined creativity. Keep contact with how much flexibility, gentleness and authenticity are necessary to handle actual, original ideas — and in the coming months, count on giving birth to lots of them.

Hello Scorpios! Your 2011 Birthday Report is ready. It’s about an hour of astrology, plus a 20-minute tarot reading. Prepared with the Sun in still in Scorpio, it’s hot with transformational energy. I focus on your ruling planet Mars, your imagination and desire nature, and a phase of solid achievement. Please check this page for more information.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — Most authority is a matter of self-mastery. Just about anyone who has succeeded in the world has figured that out, and for those who have not, we understand why some have said that nothing fails like success. You may feel a diversity of impulses to be the best at what you do, to have control over your affairs and to assert your authority in your profession. This may drive you to a new level of competition as you become a taskmaster and push your influence and your reputation. I suggest you not get too carried away with this; for example, if you have the feeling (or the suspicion) that you’re losing your emotional grounding, that’s the time to change approach. You need sleep and food; 25 pounds of laundry is too much. You might have experiences where you disconnect from your sensitivity, come close to the notion that the ends justify the means. Success is worthless if you lose contact with your humanity. Ultimately, you want your drive to come from a mix of inspiration and motivation; problems are solved less by attacking them and more by thinking them through. Yet life is not a problem. It’s more often a human equation. Therefore, I suggest that while you’re taking care of details and taking care of business, you direct most of your energy inwardly, into the emotional and intuitive places within you. And remember as Jerry used to say: the storyteller’s job is to spread light and not to master.

Sagittarius birthday report coming soon! Meanwhile, to order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 go to this link.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — You’ve opened new territory inside yourself, but you may be wondering whether it’s enough to have the experiences you want. You may be wondering if you’ve pruned away enough of the old dross in your life for new growth to sprout. What’s important is not how far you’ve gotten but rather that you have begun a challenging process, and that you’re proceeding in earnest. While there are likely to be more challenges along the way — that is life, especially when you’re in an intense growth phase — arriving at the point of actual commencement is the most important step, and you passed that point a long time ago. You cannot be sure when your deep personal exploration is going to open up into a whole new world. That could be at any moment. One thing about your life for the foreseeable future (and I do mean for years) is that the moments of breakthrough will be sudden and unexpected, and they are not necessarily going to arrive when you feel the most confident. Remember that, because you might be inclined to use your insecurity as an excuse for not being ready. Therefore keep your focus on the present. Be aware of any paradoxes you encounter. They are like atoms that contain a lot of energy. One such paradox is likely to be the experience of bold determination, which then morphs into the sensation of total instability. Hint: don’t try to divide these factors, but rather, multiply them.

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

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — You seem to be in a highly unusual moment of clarity. It’s as if everything you ever learned is organizing itself into a pattern where you can see and access it all. You may also be a little overwhelmed, as ‘it all’ encompasses wide psychic territory, long spans of time and deep history. This clarity may be arriving with the sense of the big lessons of your life and how they are coming up now not for practice but for actual mastery. Most significant among them appears to involve confronting the idea of sacrifice. My spiritual training is specific on this topic, and I will pass it onto you: stop and question everything the moment that concept arises. You know the particulars; I can speak in generalities. There are two definitions of sacrifice. The newer one is to give something up for the sake of another. The older one is to perform a sacred rite. Which of these two established definitions would you prefer, and which seems the more inevitable? Consider that for a moment. The next issue is, to what extent does your current situation involve dealing with consequences of your past actions, or past actions that were done to you by others? There is a psychological component here, and there’s likely to be a sexual one.

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

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — For you, everything comes back to how you feel. When you feel good you can conquer the world, and when you feel depleted or divided, it’s hard to get anywhere. Therefore, focus on how you feel as your first priority, rather than on any specific goal. It’s not that you don’t have big stuff happening — indeed, from the look of your solar charts, you may have some of the biggest stuff ever going on. The next month is going to present you with some challenging opportunities, and while you may be tempted to think your way to success, or work your way there, I suggest you work backwards from the place of embodying the feeling of the success you want. How do you do that? The experience of fully engaging life has a sensation to it. You’ve felt it before; you can envision it now. That sensation involves how it feels to be in your body walking around on the planet. And it involves how you wield your vision. The word ‘wield’ is usually associated with things like swords and light sabers; consider your vision a power tool. This includes your communication skills, your ideas and your message. Timing is everything. For the next month, some important matters may seem to be delayed and others will feel like some kind of invisible partition over your head opened up and started letting in this really interesting kind of cosmic sunlight you’ve never seen. The world will look different, and seen in this new light, it’s one vast opportunity.

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

Scorpio New Moon and the November Monthly Horoscope

Leave a reply

Dear Friend and Reader:

Wednesday is the Scorpio New Moon — and as you might expect this is a deep chart. There are many points aligned in Scorpio, and both rulers of that sign (Mars, the traditional ruler and Pluto, the modern ruler) are taking aspects from other planets. I would describe this as a moment of reevaluation, in a time when the door is open to asking real questions.

Photo by Eric Francis. View image in larger format.

Cutting to the chase, it’s fair to sum up the chart as saying basically: What is the role of jealousy and control in our relationships? And to what extent do these things get in the way of (or substitute for) a real exchange? Do we want that exchange, and how do we feel when it actually happens?

We take for granted that our emotional bonds with others are going to include control and jealousy (especially where sex is concerned). More than viewing this as something appropriate or useful, we tend to simply expect or even stoke these emotions, which so far as I can tell are responsible for more human misery than the next 10 factors combined. Of course, if we worked through this stuff, that would eliminate the themes of most movies, songs, artwork and poetry. Whatever would humanity do with its precious few drops of time on the planet? What would we do with our newfound freedom? That is the question that emotional drama prevents us from asking.

In some ways this is changing, but when it comes down to the level of an emotional reflex, jealousy for most people seems intractable. Once they are sexually bonded with someone, not only does jealousy often feel impossible to resolve, most would think there is no possible way to do so, and a good few would not want to — after all, it’s a sign of love, right? This could only be true in a society where relationship is seen (and often treated legally) as a property right.

We might ask where the opening would be. It’s not about relationships — it’s about self concept. The emotions I am describing are the result of near-total investment of ‘self’ into a relationship — or the idea of self into the idea of a relationship. When the relationship changes, or even when we have the notion that it might change, that can feel like a death threat to that ‘self’ that is so heavily invested. This sense of being on the inevitable, compelling, not-entirely-voluntary emotional brink is the essence of Scorpio from a psychological perspective.

This is the energy that we can either fight or work with. Working with begins with being aware and being with — rather than catapulting oneself into denial. The New Moon trine Chiron in Pisces is an opening to awareness. A little Chiron and Pisces will go a long way to helping us process Scorpio — help we can use. Alice A. Bailey describes Scorpio as “a sign which is of paramount importance in the life of evolving [humanity].” She also describes it as “the great constellation which influences the turning point both in the life of humanity and the life of the individual human being.” If you have strong Scorpio factors in your chart, you may be familiar with this. If you respond to Scorpios in a strong way, this may be what you’re responding to. Unfortunately, it’s not always expressed creatively, though it can be.

I would say that the crux of the matter of this turning point is understanding sex, death and where the two meet — or at least being open to the conversation. That intersection can involve the sensation of loss of control, or the fear that this might happen. Even admitting the least attraction to someone can come with a surge of phobia that we might lose control. The same can be said of any true creative process, to which we must give ourselves if we are to embark on it at all. This would include creating children, who are often the direct result of sex.

Sample of the Scorpio New Moon chart set for Wednesday afternoon, which shows Moon and Sun (with the same degree value), plus Venus, Mercury and Juno in Scorpio. Venus and Mercury are square Mars, which is one of the rulers of Scorpio, heightening the tension. The squares to Mars focus that tension internally.

Imagine for a moment what life would be like were we really okay with our sexual natures, and those of the people around us. Venus square Mars in the New Moon chart is describing working out internal sexual tension. Gender identity may be all over the news (for example, marriage rights for same-sex couples, and the political debate about whether being homosexual can be cured) but rarely do we take the conversation inward. Some may be dimly aware of having inner male and female polarities, but imagine if we understood how deeply these influenced our sense of identity. Think of it this way. We project the whole matter outward, as the relationship game. But if it’s really about working through internal tension, and we filter this fact out, we can get ourselves into some real quandaries. For example, that could influence us to make enormous decisions we don’t understand.

Implied in Scorpio is the concept of ‘death and transformation’. This idea comes with a bit of twisted humor in that many people would rather die than change. And that point of resistance becomes a place where others can get a lot of leverage over us. The resulting war within makes us susceptible to manipulation, especially by the deeply taboo ideas of sex and death. There is a reason they work so well in advertising.

Here is a question, which has been asked before. What if death held no appeal, no allure as a power trip, as a news item, as a political game? This allure — so often glamorized — influences us more ways than we think. If we noticed, we might be able to do something about it. Consider all the subtle ways that death stalks sexual relationships: all the ‘what ifs’, the conditions we place on people, the unspoken influences. These range from AIDS-phobia to the notion of ‘lifelong’ commitments to any consideration that includes something like one’s partner’s potential inheritance. These things are more damaging to love and the expression of life than we might imagine; it’s why A Course in Miracles suggests that you “accept no compromise in which death plays a part.” Any time you identify such a compromise, study it carefully — it’s usually a raw deal of some kind, ruled by fear, and which you can dismiss outright.

Later in the month, we experience the Taurus Full Moon. This is square Nessus in Aquarius, and to me that’s a question: To what extent do we allow our relationships to be defined by popular opinion, group dynamics or some form of bullying? Any time a relationship value becomes politicized, whether it’s in a circle of friends or the national political scene, this is what’s going on. And there is all kinds of underlying subject matter — described above — when this happens.

Right after the Full Moon, Mars moves into Virgo, where it will be for the next nine months. This is due to Mars retrograde in that sign (Jan. 23 to April 13). While the actual retrograde lasts just over three months, Mars spends a lot of time slowing down and speeding back up, all of it in Virgo. This begs the question of self-acceptance. Virgo is famous for its relentless self-critique; add Mars, and Mars seeming to reverse directions, and we have a real inquiry — with the reminder to take it easy. You can’t fix everything about yourself at once. Healing is a process, and it’s best explored gently, with determination.

I would give Mars retrograde in Virgo a two-word key phrase: healing desire. I’ll have more to say about this as that particular transit unfolds.

See you Friday with our Halloween edition.

Lovingly,

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope — November 2011

Aries (March 20-April 19) — This month, your ruling planet Mars enters Virgo, where it will be for about nine months. This involves Mars retrograde, which is a long process — but this is especially long for Mars to stay in one sign. This is an extended opportunity to rethink three things: one is your idea of work. Next is your idea of your health. Last is your idea of wellbeing. You may be filled with the inspiration to start fixing your life, and embarking on every conceivable self-improvement plan. I suggest you start with evaluating how you evaluate things. Your mind tends to be impetuous and you have a way of snapping to judgments, then sorting out whether you were right or wrong the next day or the next week. Even then, you’re trying to apply some logic, and the time has arrived to figure out just what that logic is. By that I mean, what is your concept of ‘better’? What is your idea of ‘fair’? How do you discern whether you’re coming from your mind or your emotions when you make a decision? Mars retrograde is going to put you in a position to review many, many facts of your life, and many past decisions you’ve made — and how they impact you. I suggest you begin this process well in advance. But while you’re doing that, notice how you size up those decisions. This is a process of becoming conscious even as you observe how conscious you were when you decided certain things.

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

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — You have a right to be picky about who and what you want, but if that is true, you may as well be specific. You have a tendency to tell yourself what you don’t want rather than to affirm what you actually want. The two sides of this equation — negating things and affirming things — are not equivalent values. Yes and no are both important, but yes implies making a choice, which is a commitment, and then following through on it. This, in turn, calls for a deeper level of self-awareness, and also knowing that you will live with your decision. One more point: if you say no to something, that implies that you’re keeping your other options open. If you say yes, you are in theory passing by those other options (which is not usually true but many people believe it is). Much of your hesitancy comes from this one notion. In any event, I suggest you consider all of your options, and choose consciously from among them, affirming what you want. Know good fortune when you have it, and know good times when you’re in them. It may be little comfort to say things can always be worse, but it takes an open heart to know that you’re taking care of yourself, and that others have your best interests at heart. Sooner or later we all must learn that life is not about survival, even contrary to what plenty of people with a wine cellar would tell you.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — What do you have in common with your father? Said another way, the question your astrology is asking now and for the foreseeable future is, do you feel safe? Do you have any sense of the protection that your father and the space he provided was somewhere you could be yourself? Or is that space tainted by some sense of narrowness, threat or judgment? I suggest you consider this for a while, because the answer to your question will tell you about your relationship to all men, and give you a clue as to your ideas of relationships between women and men. I believe that trust is the fundamental value in any relationship, and this relates directly to whether there is the sense of a safe container. What you may discover is that any threat to your safety lurks within your own consciousness. But these thought forms don’t just end up in our minds and emotions by accident; they are put there by others, sometimes intentionally, and sometimes just because that’s how things are done around the parts where you grew up. Now is the time to review your tendency to be self-critical, and to count the cost of any such habit. You may notice a little surge in narrow or judgmental thought patterns, and I suggest you stalk them till you understand from whence they come. It’s actually not your material; it’s ancestral residue, and once you’re aware of that fact, you’re free to cast it off.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Though your sign has a reputation for being emotionally driven, you have a knack for deep and original thought. However, I suggest you not push that too far at the moment, or get too carried away. Beware of mental obsessions and thoughts that think themselves. Rather, when working out problems or developing ideas, check in with your intuition and emotional process regularly. An unusual development in your solar chart suggests that you might have a tendency to overthink, when the solution or central concept to any circumstance you might face is likely to be intuitive or even obvious. There are two likely sources of distraction. One is conformity. It’s harder than most people think to do what you actually want rather than what everyone else thinks you should do. If someone is giving you heavy-handed ‘advice’, check their motives. Second, watch your tendency to be defensive, including knowing more about what you don’t want than what you do want. You often cast this as pragmatism, when in fact the more pragmatic approach is to keep your fields of desire wide open. Now is the time to stretch into what you want, and to give yourself the freedom to dream. Doing this, you might have the feeling of remembering old dreams, which will have more life in them than you might imagine. A broad-minded approach to life is your path to making those dreams real, which is why staying open is the way to get where you are going. And you’re definitely going somewhere.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — You are laying the groundwork for some major advances in your professional life, and your financial life. At the moment, developments may not seem to be going as fast or according to the plan you thought you were working with. No need to worry about that; you are in ‘the build tracks’ phase of making the railroad, rather than the ‘make the trains run on time’ phase. That translates to cultivating your vision of what you want to do. What is your idea of the pinnacle of success? It might not be the one you saw in a movie or a TV commercial. It’s likely to be original, and you’re at a peak of that originality right now. I would phase the question like this: what would you do if you had no fear at all of being seen as different? What would you do if you had full authority over your life? These are two different issues, but they’re related. If we had any concept of how many good ideas go nowhere because the person with the idea is afraid of being seen as weird. Even if they have faith in their concept, it’s still possible to get caught in this trap. As for money. Monetizing anything — a talent, a project, a company — is usually best accomplished using a business plan. I suggest that your business plan has three characteristics: that it be fairly meticulous, subject to adjustment and designed for the long-run.

The 2011 Leo birthday report is 70 minutes of in-depth astrology plus a 20-minute tarot reading for you, exploring relationships, personal growth and your professional life. Visit this page for additional information.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — This month brings the beginning of a significant transitional phase in your life. This is something akin to when one of the slow-moving planets arrives in your sign, indicating a major transition in your experience of yourself. I would place the time-frame at approximately nine months. I would describe the point of orientation as assertiveness. This is the ability to be clear and project your intentions and desires into the world, which begins with being able to recognize them and exist with them being actual factors you honor in your life. I recognize that you’ve been in a process of doing this for a while; you may trace it back years, with a big change over the past year or so. But most of these developments have been spurred by others: partners, healers, people setting an example for you, and the occasional pain in the ass who would try to make your life difficult but who actually ends up making you stronger. One thing you will learn during this time in your life is to be specific. Goals and ideas you explicitly state have several properties, one of which is that you can evaluate them directly. Another is you can begin to focus your energy on making them happen. I recognize there is something to be said for ‘going with the flow’, and at the moment this is what the flow is suggesting. Don’t worry about being perfect or getting it right. Focus your mind and get started.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — I would love to see statistics on what people fear in the privacy of their minds versus how rarely those things actually happen. We live in an age when many people are stalked by anxiety, and most of it is useless. You may be one of them, at least at times, and you may know many such people. The answer does not involve meds — it must involve cultivating awareness and deep healing. Letting go of fear is about reaching an understanding with oneself about existence, especially in this volatile time of history. This is a dependable theme as Saturn moves through its last year in your birth sign. This is the final stretch of your journey of ‘coming to terms with yourself’ that Saturn’s presence indicates, what may feel like a last major step into adult maturity. There will be others — but what you’re going through now is like a platform that you will build on for the rest of your life. I suggest you be blatantly honest with yourself about fear and its effects. I mean fear in any form, from the subtlest anxiety to seemingly grand concerns about not being worthy enough for something or someone. I am talking about gaining an understanding of fear on an existential level, and working it through fully — so that you emerge as a more confident, self-directed person. It is possible to live in a way that is affirmative rather than defensive. It’s possible to feel safe, even on this planet, but that requires a commitment.

Your Libra birthday audio for 2011 is finished. I’ve prepared a comprehensive reading for you, covering the astrology for your sign in about 70 minutes (in two segments) and offering a tarot reading of just under half an hour. Visit this link for additional information.

________________________________________________________

Zoom H4n recorder, ready for work, Tuesday afternoon on the Grandmother Land.

Libra Birthdays: Recorded Live on the Grandmother Land

Your Libra Birthday Reading is ready for Libra and Libra rising people. This is literally a fireside chat about your astrology for 2011, recorded in the hours before the Aries Full Moon. It covers the unusual events in your relationship, family and creative angles. Going well over the usual hour or so, this presentation was recorded outside on the land, after crossing the stream and scaling the side of the waterfall with my gear, collecting firewood and getting the fire going, ending shortly after dark. The Libra Report includes three sections of astrology plus a reading from the Voyager Tarot. The chart and a photo of the reading are included, along with access to special discounts on other projects. Here is your link to purchase.

________________________________________________________

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — There comes a time in everyone’s life when they must reconsider the notion of ‘friend’. This is a word used casually, lately reduced to a button and a statistic. I was going to say that a person is fortunate to have just a few friends in life; it’s worth remembering that there are many people who feel they have no friends, nobody they truly trust or can confide in. This is not an excuse for considering those who are in any way unsupportive, lacking in trust or who do not treat you with equanimity as friends. You will be in a pruning process over the next few seasons, when it will be natural and necessary to cull the people in your life and determine who is who. This will have a tendency to set you free to be who you are, since often, it is the expectations and past perceptions that others have of us that prevent us from expressing our true identity. If you ever find yourself in a position where being authentic means you’re unpopular, be grateful of that. Consider it a moment of clarity. The more truly you resonate with your inner being, the more likely you are to see and feel the presence of people you truly resonate with. There is a difference between antagonizing and not being afraid to be unpopular. It’s a fine line — but it’s definitely one you can see and feel. You have nothing to prove, only the right to exist as you are.

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

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — Can you make a decision based on doubt? Doubt is excellent for raising questions, reducing the number of possibilities and negating weak concepts. But ultimately one must use some other conceptual tool to make an affirmative choice. You seem to run into a self-judgment issue when you assert your authority. It’s as if you judge yourself for doing the one thing you need to do in order to move forward. While events of the next three weeks do more to raise questions than provide ready answers, you have some time to work out the puzzle of what it means to be in charge of your life. Part of what you’re working out is your tendency to want to control certain details at the same time you’re such a big-picture thinker. In truth, a skilled artist must learn to paint with a wide brush as well as a fine one. A skilled thinker must learn to think in principle and concept, as well as to attend to the smaller points that any real discussion will bring up. The key to making progress is keeping the two orders of reality in the context of one another. Seeing accurately is a matter of perspective, and this is what you are learning right now. In solving any problem or making any plan, I suggest you proceed from the general to the specific. Start with a broad goal, then refine it into something workable. Look at the general trend of your life, then focus on the specific areas you want to develop.

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

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Now is the time to create your long-term financial strategy. Remember that any strategy is an approach, and it will change over time. I’m talking about developing a game plan, and then revising it continuously. This month and indeed the rest of the year present you with opportunities and the frame of mind to initiate this in a new way. I’m aware the world around you may be populated with negative or even dreadful people, wondering all about ‘what if’. There’s ongoing talk of recession, economic collapse and all the usual paranoia. Your job is to either ignore this or see the opportunity in the midst of it. The world’s most precious resource — people — needs to be something you focus on consciously and select with the mastery of a gem cutter who can see what’s inside a stone before cutting it open. Steer clear of people who are scared or obsessive about negative outcomes. Make friends with people who think in clear terms and see your potential, and their potential, for what it is. Most of all, know what you’re envisioning. Be clear what you want to create, and how you would improve the world if you had the opportunity to do so. You may face an ongoing temptation to create something in response to the prevailing negativity of the culture. Sure, plenty can go wrong. That’s always been true. Your most significant challenge is to design your vision from a wholly positive stream of thought and feeling.

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

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — It’s difficult for most people to connect their most precious personal talents to the money they earn. In truth this represents one of the deepest splits in our psyches — and if we follow it down, I believe that ultimately it points directly to the question: Do you have a right to exist? True, it would help many smalltime enterprises if people were more willing to spend their money on things they believe in. It would help if we believed that what ‘does good’ must come to them as a charity. But more to the point, those who dare to do what they believe in must get over their insecurities and see the connection between any potential lack of self-esteem and their financial struggle. This elusive thing known as ‘doing what you want to do’ in life involves actual self-mastery. That’s another way of saying being in harmony with yourself, and utilizing your psychic and intellectual resources toward your own ends — and, notably, not against them. You have a number of seemingly different goals at the moment. I suggest you determine what they have in common and work closely with that especially precious piece of information. Try to notice what motivates each of your seemingly different objectives and draw strength from that deeper ground. Look inside of everything, for its content on every level. You are in the last stage of preparation before embarking on what I would describe as a period of achievement. So prepare yourself well.

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

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — Have you ever had that experience of thinking, Everything is going well, except for this one thing. It might be something you’re worried about, it might be a potential problem, it might be an actual problem. But for many people, there is always something. I believe that the art of life involves being able to coexist with those fears or with negative situations and not have that mess up the rest of what you’re doing, or affect what you want to do. You are in a moment of incredible potential right now, and yet there seems to be something on your mind, something that is potentially troubling your faith. I assure you that your faith is stronger than whatever this thing is — than any anxiety or concern. ‘This thing’ by the way is more likely to involve a collective matter than an individual one. You may be picking up on the fears or paralysis of others. You may be noticing the ways that others work against their own cause or live by the sword of controversy and contention. In a sense you are breaking consensus by believing in yourself. Distinguish yourself by openly coexisting peacefully with others, and by being willing to see the potential of your own talent. I suggest, therefore, that you cast aside any distraction, leave people to their petty dramas, and boldly proceed with your ideas. Don’t wait for any external ‘opportunity’ to do so. Life itself is that opportunity, and today it is all yours.

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

In Search of Love (or Self-Identity)

Leave a reply

Dear Friend and Reader:

The Sun is in Libra, the sign of relationships — and this is a month where relationships are a strong theme for other reasons. One of the aspects that makes October 2011 unique is Saturn opposite Eris. It’s an opposition between the planet of structure and form (Saturn), and the planet associated with the identity chaos of the modern psyche (Eris). Saturn has been around literally since forever. Eris was the planet named in 2006 that was responsible for the ‘demotion’ of Pluto to minor planet status. Remember that? Eris upset the known order of the solar system, and was named for the Greek goddess of discord.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Pablo Picasso (1907), Museum of Modern Art, New York. Picasso’s style of imagery reminds me of how we might see the world through the lens of Eris.

Saturn is now in Libra. Eris is in Aries, the sign of self. One speaks about structured relationships; the other about a chaotic self-concept. This is a hint that many people are trying to have structured relationships in a time of personality chaos. Often we use our relationships to try to stabilize our sense of who we are. More often than not, the restless need to exist as an individual can wreak havoc on our partnerships, which are not designed to embrace the reality of growing people, who are in motion. Our relationships, as we’re taught to have them, can offer stability that can come with a sense of confinement. This is an old situation, though I think one possibility of this time in the human story is to work that out.

Saturn opposite Eris is a picture of that. It’s a relatively rare event. There will be a nearly exact repeat of this same opposition next year, then the next time it happens will be in 2041.

This speaks to the old ‘freedom versus commitment’ issue. Our persistent challenges balancing this is what I believe makes so many relationships so unstable. We tend to assume, for example, that people are going to remain the same rather than change or grow, but growth is inevitable. We talk about making progress in our lives — then many of the arrangements that we live don’t take it so well. Our self esteem, such as we have access to it, is rarely built on solid ground.

Due to the presence of another planet in Aries, this situation is ramped up at full strength right now. That is Uranus, which is specifically about the drive to independence and freedom. It’s a relatively new arrival in Aries (it entered that sign to stay on March 11), and for those who can feel its influence, it’s pushing the drive for individuality to a new height. We are currently in one of the most restless moments in many generations. It’s as if something is stirring in the human spirit, eager to bust free. Of course, then there is the other side of the psyche, which wants to cling and hold fast and make sure that nothing important changes.

La Vie by Pablo Picasso (1903), Cleveland Museum of Art.

Many are noticing that the compromises they used to make in their partnerships and households no longer work. Relationships will have to adapt to contain a meeting of actual individuals. Many decent, loving people struggle to find an appropriate partner. There is a large swath of the population that needs a partner who can really honor them as a whole person, which would mean someone else living as a whole person as well.

Saturn in Libra may seem to be setting limits on your relationships. You may be feeling the sense of being enclosed within something more palpably than usual. You may feel like you don’t want a relationship, but you do want to relate. Now is the time to consider what kind of relationship structure best matches with the reality of who you truly are, and what kind of person would be best suited to that reality — if anyone.

For those currently in intimate partnerships, you might ask: how much of your identity is wrapped up in your relationship? To what extent do you use your relationship to stabilize your life, rather than doing inner work on the issues that might be destabilizing you? Even if this is a question that has persisted for many years, you may finally be able to embrace the subject matter now. One key to doing so will be people acknowledging restlessness, the need for independence and the desire for a more complex social life as qualities rather than as things that describe us as dysfunctional. In other words, you’re not weird if you feel restless. It’s not a sign of intimacy issues — it’s more likely a sign that you’re alive. The need to exist as an individual is a healthy and necessary state of growth, and we can still want companionship, trust and closeness to others.

Saturn opposite Eris is exact on Oct. 27. Here are some other details from this month’s astrology. The Aries Full Moon is on Oct. 11. That event may bring out the themes I’ve described above in a distinctive, polarized way. You may seem to be confronted by an either-or choice. The Sun will be conjunct Saturn and the Moon will be conjunct Eris. This will emphasize the polarity. It’s up to you to discover the common ground you share with the people you’re close to. Full Moon is an excellent time to work through deadlocks.

In this chart, Mercury is trine Neptune — an aspect that heightens intuition. I suggest you let your intuition be your guide to communication. Don’t just guess what someone is feeling, or expect them to guess what you’re thinking and feeling. We assume that we’re supposed to do a lot of that in our relationships.

Femme nue au collier by Pablo Picasso (1968), part of the Tate collection of art, held in London.

Next is the Sun entering Scorpio on October 23. The Sun joins Mercury and Venus, which are already in Scorpio by that time. So this is going to be a rich, sensuous season of Scorpio. The days that follow the Sun’s ingress into this singularly important sign are often profound. They are the days that the veil between the dimensions is the thinnest. You don’t need to be a clairvoyant to feel the poignancy of this. Many cultures celebrate the Days of the Dead at this time, when they welcome home the spirits of their ancestors.

Scorpio shifts the emphasis from relationships to sex. The presence of Chiron in Pisces accents the healing aspect of sexuality — something that many of us are aware of but that few people know how to access or work with. One suggestion I have is to work with the distinction between ‘fantasy’ and ‘reality’. Create a space wherein it’s safe for you and anyone you’re intimate with to open up on the level of imagination. Notice if you feel threatened by potentials or ideas. That’s a good space to observe your responses and relax into the different possibilities, which is likely to be more fun and not as destabilizing as you imagine it would be.

The Scorpio New Moon follows on Oct. 26. This happens early in the Sun’s trek across Scorpio, so both the Sun and the Moon are trine Chiron. The New Moon also makes a strong, useful aspect to Pluto (a sextile), granting mental and emotional leverage. And the New Moon is opposite Jupiter. That brings the theme back around to where we started — what is the true meaning of relationships? How much do we seek them for love, and how much for the supposed benefits they offer?

Lovingly

P.S. Sometime over the weekend you’ll receive an announcement for the 2011 Autumn Report, which describes this month’s aspects in greater detail for each of the 12 signs. Check your inbox. — efc

Now Playing: Virgo Birthday Report

Dear Planet Waves Reader:

Your Virgo birthday reading is available — a little late, and perfectly dry. It survived the great Virgo Hurricane Irene and is now ready for you. It’s about 70 minutes of astrology and tarot — two sections of astrology and then a reading with the Voyager deck by James Wanless.

Another Virgo hurricane.

In the first section of astrology I cover a topic that I’ve been developing over the past few years for Virgo — family material and ancestral history. Your charts have the theme of resolving old karma. It’s in high focus, a clue that this is the time to do it. This is based on the Sagittarius alignment you may have read about, that is in your solar chart’s house of family, safety and security.

One of the themes I address is your tendency to use spirituality as your primary line of defense in the world, rather than say locks, alarms and karate. Your early environment had some unusual properties regarding religion, which I describe in terms of how they influence you now.

In the second section of astrology, I cover relationships and then your work/professional life. Relationships are of course an outgrowth of our family environment, and there is something new in your environment now. The past seven years have been a challenging spell in your love life, and now something new is coming into focus: a new energy, and a new quality to the communication. You have more in common with some of the people you meet, and also there are some greater risks involved, and greater vulnerability necessary to make real contact.

In the section on your professional life, I talk about what it’s like to have two career goals, or two entirely different professional paths. This is also a time of purging old goals and embracing the new ones.

I will let the tarot section speak for itself. Photos of the spread are included.

The whole package is yours for $14.95. Here is how to order.

Lovingly,

Dear Friend and Reader:

I’ve prepared a new 12-sign report for you — one that covers the rest of the year. These little projects have proven to be a popular and efficient way to provide extended astrology information. They’re based on the same method I use for my horoscope, but with spoken word it’s also spacious, with most of the readings being about 15 or 20 minutes long.

Eric Francis chez Blue Studio.

Most of my colleagues do weekly 12-sign audio. I am working toward that with these seasonal projects, which go into greater depth than you can usually get in a scripted four or five minute recording. Your 12 signs come with a free half-hour introduction that anyone can listen to. Then you can listen to your Sun, Moon and rising signs, or those of your friends.

As for theme: there is an unusual focus on relationships for the next few months and into the first half of 2012. It goes a little like this. We’re conditioned to find our ‘missing piece’ in relationships with others. Sometimes that seems to be the only option available — until we figure out that we really do want to be a whole person relating to another whole person. That provides something solid to stand on, and the security of knowing that someone else is not basing their whole life on you. Looking at the aspect Saturn opposite Eris, I introduce this theme, among others. I covered this subject in the October monthly horoscope.

The idea of independence and autonomy extends into many areas of life, including the creative and work aspects of existence. Those are, in truth, going through as many changes as our relationships. I cover some of this material as well.

My audio readings are casual, free-style (direct from the chart, not from a script) and designed to get you thinking and choosing rather than designed to stoke up your expectations. While I spend a lot of time listening in my one-on-one sessions, I take advantage of my many dialogs with my readers to get a sense of how to tune my interpretations.

Every time one of these products goes out, we get some amazing responses that always surprise me and encourage me to keep experimenting. Just a moment ago, this message came in: “Eric, I love listening to your voice. Your reading was quite enlightening and confirming. Lots of new information that I can work with. Paired with the reading I was able to listen to for 2010…. Wow! You are a gem in the universe. Love to you and your staff.”

If you’re interested in exploring this report, here is the sales link.

Please let me know how you like this series of readings — and by the way they are guaranteed; if you’re anything other than fully satisfied, just call Chelsea and we will return your payment.

Sending the love right back to you —

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope – October 2011

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

Aries (March 20-April 19) — In every relationship where the parties are opposite sex and anywhere close to reproductive age, there will be reproductive politics involved. The relationship does not have to be an overtly sexual one; pheromones know no boundaries. By politics I mean there will be some negotiation or struggle for power that is based on biological instructions that tell us to reproduce, and how those are activated by the presence of people who might help us do that. Within relationships, part of the struggle involves the question of whether the ‘real’ purpose of sex is to make babies or to make love. I don’t mean to set up a dichotomy, or worse, a false dichotomy. The actual purpose is not necessarily one or the other — but the truth is that relatively few people explore their sexuality in order to have children. That happens without much exploration at all; in fact it usually happens unconsciously, leading to all kinds of adventures and misadventures. This is the time to take control of your creative power, in whatever form it takes. It’s the time to look for your wholeness not in relationships but within yourself. It’s been that time for a while, but as the next month or two develop, you may discover that you have no choice. Your relationships will remain important; they will provide the necessary reflection that your self-discovery and healing process are your business. Yet beyond a certain point, they can no longer be the main focus of your life.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — You’re about to reach a limit in your relationship to your mother or to her legacy. The days of deep therapy where we looked honestly at the influence of our parents seem to be a relic of history, supplanted by prescriptions and distractions. Yet there is wisdom in understanding how these previously all-powerful, all-knowing people shaped us, taught us how to feel about ourselves and influenced our concept of the world. This month you will have the opportunity to see something involving your parents that has been impossible to observe, perhaps ever. Factors that operate ‘subconsciously’ can have a profound influence on our lives, often being point sources of the psychic chaos that we don’t seem to understand. These are the same internal wave machines that keep us running in circles or searching obsessively for who we are. They are often invisible; we have to infer their existence, and that can seem like a clairvoyant feat. Yet a kind of clairvoyance is exactly what you get now: the ability to see into the dark, into the world of your ancestors, and in particular, into the psyche of your mother. I can describe what I am seeing in your solar chart: seemed to be something strong about her, which was a mask over something that was missing. It’s not just this fact that you can observe, but also the results. Once you understand the ways you’ve been turned against yourself, you may find it a lot easier to be your own friend.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Creativity is serious business. I agree with Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way: actually expressing your creativity is more about focus and discipline than it is about inspiration. Yes, it’s wonderful when work seems ‘truly inspired’, but that says nothing of the 15 drafts that went into an article or novel you love. It’s a little like the feeling you get sitting inside a cathedral, responding to the architecture — then you realize it took a century to build, requiring a mix of inspiration, engineering and persistence. Your chart is strong with all three right now. Gemini is famous for its challenges focusing; in order to harness your creative (or other) talents, what seems like an extreme kind of discipline is necessary. It’s not really extreme, though. It’s more about guiding your work process into a container. This might be about anything from a job search to a project you’ve wanted to do for a long time. The container is primarily about time and space. Define the time and set aside the space and you will make a lot more progress. I suggest you work with limits, such as ‘one hour on this project every day’, until whatever you’re doing has a life of its own. You will feel a threshold shift at that point. I would add a word of caution about the influence of friends. They are only your friends if they have the same basic agenda as you.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — What exactly are you exerting yourself against? Let’s say you want to be more confident, so to do that you wage a campaign against insecurity. How well is that going to work? Another approach would be to master the elements of confidence, while gradually understanding your insecurity. In that case you would not be waging a campaign against anything, but rather reaching into another way of being more suited to your goals. I suggest you keep your efforts proactive, rather than attempting to fix something about you or about the world that is ‘wrong’. There is a fine line, I know. But rather than being about something you can see, it’s about something you can feel. Fixing something feels different than creating something new. Of course, to switch from one to the other, you would need to shift your orientation from the past to the present/future. Your primary goal would be different as well, and by that I mean your concept for what you want to accomplish. It’s both easier to focus on the past, and easier to get stuck there. What you might call the key to the future is a vision; that is the difference between fixing and creating. Gradually you are strengthening the part of your mind that allows you to visualize what does not exist. This is going to take some time, but you are about to receive an energy boost. This month, I can sum up the key to discerning the past from the present in one word — passion.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — You are working with a lot of energy right now, and you need to direct it consciously. It would help if you figured out just how much you are working with, a fact that may be concealed by the odd sense that your energy is suppressed. In truth it is not; that is merely a thought, but it’s a powerful one. You may be concerned that if you tap into your energy, you’ll go out of control. I can assure you this will not happen; the more you make contact with your sense of presence, your will and your clear desires, the more you’re likely to direct them in a constructive way. I would caution you that in the angle of your solar chart that addresses matters of a spiritual or religious nature, there is quite a bit of chaos — as if you’re not sure what you believe. For this reason, I suggest you explore your beliefs in the form of practical actions: making things, exploring places you’ve never seen, business activities and even sex. I think you may be sensing the potential for harming others, or for being perceived as selfish — or worse, actually discounting the needs of others and being self-centered. The astrology has some built-in safeguards that will pretty much ensure that you take the needs of others and indeed your whole environment into account, though until you dare to do something different, you might not notice they are in place.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — You would do well to ask yourself just what happened to you the past month, and where those events leave you right now. For a few years, you’ve been addressing a situation with roots deep in the past. Each year around your birthday there is a flare-up of what you might think of as emotional activity, or family issues, or karma. Then it tends to sink below the surface for a while, only to arise again in a new form. You may think that you’re not making any progress but I can assure you that if you compare the past three birthday seasons, you will see signs of movement, maturity and increasing emotional clarity. One thing to bear in mind (I will repeat this later in the year) is the relationship between emotional wellbeing and your sense of being spiritually grounded. These may be connected for everyone, but for you the contact point is especially vivid. There is a deeper connection to your ancestral past that you may have noticed during these phases, if you look beyond family-related dramas — they go much deeper. As for where that leaves you today, having been through this? I would suggest that you’ve never been closer to who you are. The opinions of relationship partners, business partners or those who would seek to influence your life are now in their correct place. Feel the sensation of being solid in who you are, your own authority, your own source of trust.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Relationships as we practice them are not set up for the partners to keep individuating. They tend to be designed for conformity, which in theory is the easier of the two ways to go — unless, of course, ongoing growth is your desire and your intention. There’s also something else going on. Much of the struggle we see in relationships is between the desire of people to be free and their desire to have companionship. The phase of life you’re in right now is about working through that seeming contradiction. It’s actually possible to resolve this one, but you need a lot of maturity and determination to do it. It comes down to understanding the purpose of your existence, which is secondary to the purpose of your relationships. This is the big one; this is the thing. Those who focus on existence first and relationships second can highlight or evoke the insecurity of those around them. Yet what you may be discovering is the simple and necessary truth that you are the most significant point of continuity in your life. Your path through the universe is consistent; the people around you will come and go. To get to this spot, you may have to pass through a sense of loneliness or isolation (or the fear of this potential). But something is waiting for you on the other side. I believe this will be a crucial step in transitioning toward your authentic personhood and independence.

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

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — As a perpetual gender studies major, one thing I’ve noticed about the world in recent years is women openly expressing their desire to be in contact with their male side. This used to be expressed as (clearly misnamed) feminism. These days, it is something more basic and not attached to much ideology — nor to being lesbian. I believe that men have been openly pushing the envelope on expressing their feminine side for a lot longer, even risking arrest, prosecution and clobbering to do so. The astrology of Scorpio this month is all about exploring sexual identity. I mean that from the inside out — the emotional and hormonal experience of sex and gender rather than any kind of affect or show of style. For a while you may feel like you’re two different people, one who likes to dominate and conquer, and one who thirsts for submission and craves allowing your more vulnerable side out of its usual hiding places. You may have the illusion that this is building to some kind of a crisis, particularly if it’s causing any consternation in your relationships. It could just as easily be a fun place to explore, if you put your desires face-up on the table. But I don’t really see a crisis at all — what I see is a direct experience of resolving some long-held tension, which will allow you to clear up important elements of the past and move on to a new agenda in life and in love.

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

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — Ethics are always situational: they depend on the moment. As such they are flexible and useful. Morals pretend to be absolute, and as a result they are brittle and lack sensitivity to the actual circumstances involved in any question of right or wrong. You’re in the process of getting clear about all of this, and I reckon it’s been through personal experience and not by sitting in philosophy class. The world is in a state of moral decay (which is frightening enough), but in the midst of this extreme disorientation can arise the simple question of what is appropriate. I suggest you keep asking yourself that, from moment to moment. The word ethics has its root in the Greek word ethos, which was considered the highest ideal — and the true spirit of a person or a society. When we say, ‘This is a person of character’, we are talking about ethos. I think of it as the guiding ray within a person, something you can tune into that informs and enlightens everything else that you do. I suggest you allow all of your experiences to guide you toward making contact with this core experience of humanity: they certainly can right now, if that is what you want. The sensation is a distinct morph of that which is spiritual and that which is human. It’s the place where there is no difference; that well-tuned state of mind where life becomes art and art becomes life.

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

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — In what ways have you succeeded at doing things differently than your parents? I really mean it — truly, significantly differently? Humanity has a way of not making progress on this particular issue, partly because people are so enamored of their parents, and so many others aspire to their mediocrity. I have noticed that much of what we call self-improvement, personal growth or having better relationships usually exists in contrast to our parents and how we think of them. In a sense, we’re always dancing with their limits — that is, until we stop. One of the most popular ways to go beyond those particular limits is to wage a revolt. However, where you are in life that’s not only not an option: it’s just a tad adolescent, when your primary objective (so far as I can tell) is to be a dependable adult. There is certainly a rebellious streak that is stirring you up deep inside, but your expression of that impulse is designed to be all about solid, unflinching leadership. One thing about Capricorn is that it’s always a child inside, and that you tend to get younger as the years unfold. Let your desire to stir the pot entice you to be that much more fearless, that much bolder, but always taking a well-proportioned approach and giving the appearance of playing within the rules. In essence, the perfect revolt for this moment is to be unequivocally yourself.

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

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Religion is a supposedly simple way to cook down the complexities of who and what a person is. It takes many forms, but the one thing they all have in common is reducing many intricacies and subtle shades of meaning down to rules and a few rigid ideas. They paper over how much we have going on inside, how jumbled our minds can get, and how difficult it can be to have a clear sense of self. This is especially true now, due to two current, and rather extreme, trends: increasing limits placed on our options (all of us), and the deep restlessness of the human soul. You don’t need to impose an external ideology onto yourself, no matter where it comes from; that is not a solution. You also have a rare perspective on seeing the ways in which beliefs box you into your limitations, and know how questioning your beliefs can set you free. Over the next few weeks, you’re likely to encounter situations that compel you to challenge what you believe and why. The deeper issue is who has set the limits on your vision of yourself and of the world; who has set the limits on your happiness. You may be inclined to say that it’s you, but it actually goes back a lot longer than any memory of the ‘you’ that you now know. I suggest you push back; your mind is vibrating with the need to express yourself, and though it seems chaotic in there, it’s the fertile, passionate kind of chaos.

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

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — You are poised to make some truly innovative decisions about money, which will be disguised in the appearance of conventionality. By innovative I mean radical, based on your values and your willingness to dare. By appearance of conventionality, I mean through some kind of structure or agreement that seems, on its face, like it’s a normal thing: a contract, a company, a partnership of some kind. This is an opportunity to remember — and work with — the difference between content and form, which is another way of saying that appearances deceive. There are many forms of deception, and one of them is camouflage, which is precisely what you’re doing. In a similar way, your charts talk about working both ends of the polarity that seems to run from risk to discipline. It’s not really that linear; these are ingredients that you can and must blend artfully; you need the right proportion of each. As you do this, remember your purpose; focus on why you’re doing what you’re doing, and consider your ultimate goal. That goal is likely to change and evolve, which is a healthy sign: it means your values are in a state of evolution. If the people around you seem stuck or slow to pick up on what, to you, is obvious, don’t waste energy trying to convince people of anything. Your actions and their results will speak for themselves.

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

September: From Virgo to Libra

Leave a reply

Dear Friend and Reader:

September is the month of the equinox. Whether you’re a reader in the Northern Hemisphere or the Southern, the Sun soon enters Libra, which is illustrated by scales — of balance, of duality and the ones held by Astraea, the goddess of justice. To me, the thing that stands out the most about Libra is its affinity for elegance and beauty.

Artifact of Bread & Puppet Theater in Vermont, probably from the late 1970s or so, which was hung over the bread-baking station at Dance New England dance camp. The name Bread & Puppet derives from the theater’s practice of sharing its own fresh bread, served for free with aioli with the audience of each performance as a means of creating community, and from its central principle that art should be as basic to life as bread. It’s also a pun on, and reclaiming of, the political phrase, bread and circuses — the things that politicians use to keep the masses disracted. Grain and its storage places are under the dominion of the sign Virgo. Photo by Eric Francis.

For the moment, the Sun is newly in Virgo, as is Venus. I’ll take things in order, covering the events of early September, then covering the equinox and Libra ingress. The Sun through Virgo is the last solar month of the season; every season ends with the Sun in a mutable sign.

There is one last holdover in Leo: Mercury, which was retrograde through most of August (and will be so through this Friday afternoon, Aug. 26). These phases can be a bit chaotic, though the last week in August has been (and still is) particularly hectic. Friday’s station direct comes just a few days after the Sun entered Virgo on Aug. 23. Mercury changes direction in an instant, but the retrograde process does not end all at once; it takes an extra few weeks to unravel. I would propose that the process will be complete Sept. 10, when Mercury and Chiron — two planets associated with Virgo — meet face to face.

This opposition is a moment of awareness and revelation, where what we think of separately as practical matters and spiritual matters confront one another. If you’re inclined to think of them as ‘separate’ things, take the opportunity to draw from one dimension into other, that is, feeling the presence of spirit in the most ordinary things you do, and giving your spiritual principles some specific job or purpose in the world. I recognize this is considered challenging, and that may be because it relates to one of the fundamental divisions we experience, and that every spiritual path seems designed to address. This dualism shows up in many forms — such as the perceived differences between mind and body, thought and action, or intention and outcome — or in the words of Dickens, fact vs. fancy (a distinction we could use more of lately).

Amanda. Photo by Eric Francis.

There’s something in this aspect about making sure your beliefs and the data confirm one another, or at least inform one another. Some of the opinions we argue for the most aggressively have no basis in observable facts. Some of the most obvious and established fact patterns still fail to make it into our belief systems as something worth considering. The world would not be nearly so troubled if we could negotiate this territory.

Think of Mercury opposite Chiron as a kind of council meeting, where Virgo (what is documentable) and Pisces (what we believe or accept on faith) are going to hold one another accountable. But Chiron is powerful in Pisces, focusing belief into faith, and Mercury is at home in Virgo, sure in its knowledge. Both placements are confident; this can be a real conversation, rather than the usual exchange of dogma.

You might conduct an experiment as this astrology develops. Take one thing you believe and defend and do a little fact checking. How does that belief check out? Can you verify it, or authenticate it? Or, consider something new you learn, which you have reason to believe is true. Does this knowledge influence your conduct? If you do this a few times, you might be surprised what you discover.

There is additional discovery as the Sun and Venus pass through mid-Virgo and make squares to the lunar nodes, which is another way of saying that it activates the Gemini solar eclipse of June 1. One peak time of this activation is the Pisces Full Moon of Sept. 12, another aspect that plays on the logic-intuition dichotomy. The Sun is positioned such that it goes deep into the belly of consciousness, with the feeling of ‘the brighter the light, the darker the shadows’. On the other side of the zodiac, the Moon is in a position that highlights intuition and creativity. Notably, this event is synchronous with the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 incident.

Teenagers take over the computer center at Dance New England dance camp last week. Photo by Eric Francis.

The Libra equinox is on Sept. 23. Changes of seasons are always special times, but at this phase of astrological history they are especially so because so many planets are collected at the early degrees of the cardinal signs. I’m referring mainly to Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn — but there is also an important (if rarely mentioned) point called Kronos in early Cancer. When the Sun ingresses Libra, it aspects all of these, and also picks up on Chiron in Pisces.

Because of this, seasonal changes might require bigger, more sudden adjustments than they would ordinarily. This process is being activated by the Sun, and the theme is self-expression. Because the sign involved is Libra, there must be some balance between ‘self’ and ‘expression’ if either is to be meaningful. I daresay this is a tricky one — whether we’re talking about keeping that balance in any creative process, or relational experience (self and other). Often it seems to be a razor’s edge, though veiled in the garb of Libra — which might come with the quest for social justice.

Remember that we tend to learn through conflict. There are other ways to learn, but humans seem to back themselves into this corner frequently. You might want to think back to what you learned from the various points of contention over the past couple of months — it’s been a rather sporting summer, and through your adventures I trust you’ve learned something about conflict resolution. Libra suggests there is a virtue to learning from all sides of the equation. There is validity to the viewpoints you find the most ridiculous (even if that comes in the form of figuring out what you don’t want, or cannot abide). Connect with the person beneath the opinion. Encounter the lover beneath the archetype. Reach inward for the Self beneath your story. That point of contact will help you stay grounded in what you know in your heart.

Lovingly,

Additional research: Gary Caton.

PS: I have a detailed post on Mercury stationing direct available, and also a brief reading of the chart for Tuesday’s earthquake in Virginia. Plus the podcast I just posted is amazing — due entirely to its guest, a young man named Porter Eichenlaub, who has a lot to say about getting your education through direct experience. This is a must-listen for high school students, those who feel challenged by the structure of a college, or parents of such young folks.

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope – September 2011

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

Aries (March 20-April 19) — I suggest you become more curious about your sense of emotional injury. Usually we avoid investigating this kind of thing when we can. Yet recent events might have stirred you up a bit, and that’s an invitation to go deeper. This is especially true if you’ve had any of those ‘I’m feeling something deep but I really don’t know what it is’ moments the past three or four weeks. Your charts give a clue: the picture shows a relationship between your sense of pride, the sensation of being hurt, and a particular way you tend to get stuck. Somewhere in your distant past, you were told it was wrong to be self-centered, which you took as meaning ‘centered in yourself’. The result, of course, would have been to knock you off-center, as if that were somehow good for you or anyone else. Self-centered vs. centered in yourself has many equivalents. I suggest you also sort out arrogant from confident; narcissistic from self-loving; needing attention from craving meaningful passionate contact with others. Underneath these distinctions is a deeper value. The first concept in each pair is about alienation, and the second is relational. The first involves a sense of injury and the second is about healing. Yet they’re not really opposites; they are related like shadow and light, which depend on one another to exist. If you want the light, it’s necessary to embrace what’s going on in your shadows. Both, treated with awareness, are sources of nourishment and wisdom.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — There comes that point when the mental realm breaks through into the physical, as desire, decision or action — and you are at this point. The inner realm of ideas can be a lot of fun, considering what is possible and making plans for the future. It’s true that there are many possibilities, and you have many ways to express yourself. But thinking about things only goes so far. Suddenly experience becomes the journey, because it must. In my lexicon, experience means a direct experiment. Experiments start with a plan, but the whole point is that you don’t know the outcome. It’s easy to control one’s mind; it’s more challenging to guide it to be free. In an odd way, this takes discipline, which means focusing your desire to make an inquiry that is liberated from rules about the outcome. That’s when the experiment can really begin — and in a sense, it already has. You’ve been passing through a series of gateways, or more like choke points, and as you emerge through each of them you’re born into a slightly new awareness — each one closer to your body than your mind. These passages have served to wake you up to what is possible. When it comes to the actual, conscious experiment, you get to let go again, on a deeper level, sometimes involving another person — and sometimes for only a brief experience that teaches you a lot. Be sensitive to what each particular experience calls for.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Mercury is still cooling down from its recent retrograde. You will be working out the adventures and misadventures of the summer for the next few weeks, in a house that for you is about your immediate vicinity and your day-to-day affairs. Make sure you put extra emphasis on resolving unfinished business, despite your desire to move forward. There may be a particular ending that you need to focus on. One crisis of our society is how little attention we pay to closure. We leave the past behind as if it never happened, or in the alternate, slowly go mad with resentment. As a result we often live with the festering wounds of our families (in particular) for much of our lives. You’re at a point where a new kind of power is coming to you. You’re being summoned to unusual achievements, which is another way of saying that you’re activating your talent, potential and quest for the future. To focus that influence, it’s vital that you be clear about the meaning of your own history. I will give you a clue: it means less than you think, but for that to actually be helpful, you must be clear and see the influences for what they are. Your family — neurotic and contradictory as it was — is what made you unique. This is not a matter of discarding or moving beyond anything, but rather of integrating, accepting and making creative use of everything you’ve experienced in all of your time on the planet.

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

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Everything comes down to self-esteem. It’s the quality that mediates your relationship to yourself, to the world and all the people in it. I’m not one for claiming that something is a panacea, but for many reasons it would be wise of you to consider any question you face through the context of how you feel about yourself, and the degree to which you respect yourself. I believe this is true for everyone, but due to certain facts of your chart, and certain elements of the moment now, how you feel about yourself is the obvious, palpable tipping point of your existence. Notably, this inner quality will influence everyone around you. But self-love itself is not so obvious, and it’s wrapped in many taboos that you must violate in order to get where you’re going. I suggest you think not in terms of a goal or ultimate destination, but rather a feeling, and a sense of purpose that you can travel with. What practical actions have you already taken toward that end? What have you already accomplished? Look for specific examples, and then look for the pattern. You’ve accomplished more than you think. Where you’re at now is more about valuing and building on what you’ve started rather than starting anything new. Yet at the same time you may have a strong sense of starting over. To the extent it’s true, you’ve developed tools that you’re learning how to use. You are starting to understand something about your power: mainly — above all else — from where you stand right now, that you have the ability to choose.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — Doubt does not work as a way of life, because doubt is not creative. Therefore, keep sending yourself positive messages about where you are, and what you can accomplish, in that order. The ‘who you are’ piece is one of those lifelong meditations for Leos. I know, it can be so certain, then so tenuous. Your sign is associated with gold, and your ‘planet’, the Sun, is a star — the center of our solar system. But the doubts and questions you’ve been addressing are human to the core. It’s strange how small disturbances, even those you forgot or thought you had resolved, can create a much deeper state of doubt than seems possible. What you have learned the past month, and are still discovering as Mercury works its way through your sign, is how to get out of your own way. This is a trick of the mind; so too is paralyzing doubt (or regret, or any form of anxiety). Yet when doubt seems to fixate on a deeper injury, or events from the past that still haunt you, that’s the time to be aware and make a decision. The past is gone, but a copy of it still exists as if written in a book. What you’re doing is rereading and reinterpreting the past — take that up actively. Be bold looking at old things, and old problems, in new ways. As you do this, one particular goal will come into focus, as will your faithful determination to make it real.

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

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — You are strong enough, and feel beautiful enough, to be yourself in your relationships — 100% yourself and nobody else. It might mean stating your desires honestly. It might mean standing up to someone in a way you never have before. It might mean making a decision based on nothing other than what you know to be true. One of the great challenges of human existence is creating a state of equality in our relationships. But there’s only one way to get there, as far as I can tell, which is calling ourselves fully present into our own lives. There comes a point where you know it’s better to be in no relationship at all than one that is not healthy for you, and that is the moment when equality is possible. This is a way of saying you have nothing to lose by being real, and it’s a way of saying you’re ready to offer yourself fully to the right situation. Now is the time to experience that sense of wholeness and self-sufficiency. In truth this idea goes far deeper than relationships, which get too much emphasis as the core meaning of life. Yet existence itself is a relationship — which might be between you and the other, between you and yourself, or between you and all that you don’t know. Being fully yourself means summoning your commitment to existence.

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

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — There’s a fantastic musical from 1970 called The Me Nobody Knows. It explores the secret lives of inner city kids who put their feelings, observations and experiences into words. The play has no plot — only characters and a theme. In a similar way you come to the world with your own deeply introspective journey, your observations, and certain experiences that don’t seem to rise to the level of a story. Being totally open with yourself about this dimension of your life will help you feel strong, clear and grounded. Go beyond the familiar routines of your life directly into the feeling of existence. As you do, imagine what it would be like to speak your truth to the people around you, even as you discover it. Feel how bold and tentative this is at the same time, when you speak from an unfamiliar place and step out onto the edge of your awareness. That is the creative state: a kind of poignant unknown that you cannot hide from yourself. Shorn of intent or desire, something actually new can emerge. Shorn of judgment, you can allow your fears to come to the surface, where they have less power over you. Be aware of your sense of ambivalence and give it space to exist. There is indeed a you that nobody knows, and you’re discovering who this person is. Don’t rush; rather, listen and feel. You have no role to play, but rather a place to find where you are met by others who look at you through honest eyes.

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

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — You tend to be picky about your friends, and you hold them to a high standard. How much of that, I wonder, is a response to your feeling like you’re being judged and scrutinized by others? It looks like this scenario is starting to relax. If you’re feeling more welcoming of others on a social level, you can be sure they’re feeling more welcoming of you. It may seem that this is about letting go of social pretenses, and on one level it is. But the deeper aspect of that is about having reached the point where you have no option other than to be real. That’s drawing you out of your shell and giving you the courage to take a chance on a new kind of vulnerability. Making contact with your own creative force, and the deeper currents in your imagination, is a potent force for making contact with others in a way that is fully authentic. As you do this you will notice the people around you are more embracing than they’ve ever been, or rather, than you’ve ever noticed them being. Your own inhibitions played a role in isolating you from others, and in assuming that they were looking at you askance. Even if that happened in reality, sooner or later you will have to leave your impressions behind and proceed through life free of the prejudices past experiences burdened you with. Take the risk of creating your life in every moment. Life will return the favor by recreating you in every moment.

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

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — This is a complicated time for you personally — but don’t let that stop you from taking advantage of a moment when the door is open to a great achievement or two. It’s often true that the energy in all aspects of your life increases at the same time. On a personal level, you’re sorting out some potentially troubling, at the very least challenging, questions. Here is one. If you excel in the world, and shine in your chosen profession, does that make you a self-centered, egotistical so and so? Of course it doesn’t, but there are family influences (overt or sly) you might want to investigate, which propagated a belief that success is a sign of bad character. From the look of your charts, you’re in the somewhat uncomfortable position of being compelled to find your individuality, while at the same time pushing back against conditioning that until now you only had a scant clue existed. You will discover more of these influences as you continue to push — they are part of the same self-discovery process. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say a self-creation process, which feels a lot like taking back space that was taken from you. I reckon that as you do this, opportunities will open up in the world around you that match your inner growth. Just remember: even if you seem to get a lucky break, you worked for it — and you will need to put some focus into developing it.

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

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Someone close to you may be acting like the human trampoline. I reckon they’re about done, none too soon, either. You cannot really control others, but you can definitely set limits on what you’ll tolerate. Meanwhile, you have more important matters on your mind, and you want to maintain a thoughtful and productive environment. That said, avoid an ‘all business’ attitude. Keep your flexibility and sense of play. You’re in a position of leadership, and that starts with holding a vision and then acting on it. That means bringing people around you into focus — and that is why anyone whose primary function is to rock the boat needs to spend a little time in the water. Yet make sure that you’re not contributing to any games. Be clear about what you want, first with yourself and then with others. At the same time, make careful note of how others influence you. Make sure that their lack of confidence does not become your own. You certainly might have empathy with someone who is feeling less than confident of themselves, but don’t have too much. The chances are that their crisis of confidence isn’t quite what they think it is. Therefore, don’t fall for it — and then if their state of mind influences you or anything you’re doing, address the matter directly with them. This is a moment for you to be steady and stable as a top priority, and though life has thrown you a few curves lately, you’re up for the challenge.

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

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — You seem to be working a particular edge of your presence in the world. The feeling is something like ‘this is so new and strange, but I’m sure I’ve been here before’. Both are true. I want to suggest something bold, which is that you’re currently in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime spiritual initiation. This is the challenging, painful, beautiful, interesting and necessary process of emerging into the world as the person you always knew you were inside. This may feel tentative and subtle at times, bold and inevitable at others. In this stage, the most meaningful thing is not what you accomplish or do in the world — rather, it’s tuning your perceptions and responses to a new frequency and feeling tone. For the moment, life is all about how you respond to it. You may notice yourself easing out of any competitive tendencies into more collaborative ones. You may be noticing the prevailing fear-based consensus reality for what it is — and in the same gesture understanding that this is simply not your way. Note that how you distinguish yourself and your individual nervous system from the toxic cloud of anxiety is by becoming more sensitive, not less. I know this feels like a big gamble in a world where so many people seem poised to assault at the least opportunity. Part of your evolutionary mission is to be on the forefront of people who actually feel safe on the planet.

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

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — You live closer to the dreamtime than many people — indeed, nearly everyone. By this I mean that you stand with one foot in the unseen world, and the ‘real world’ often looks misty and strange to you. This moment in your life is about going as far beyond the veil as you can, into that other world, and then taking that insight and grounding it in tangible form in the physical plane. One of the gifts you have is the ability to sense the transient, delicate quality of the existence that we share. You may feel like you’re straddling two worlds, one that everyone agrees exists and another that few people believe is real. Remember, that doesn’t make it or your experience any less real. But as someone tapping into an alternate realm of knowledge, you may feel moments of isolation or exclusion. Part of how you’re working through that is by keeping at least one foot and part of your mind in the local world of experience, no matter how strange it seems. There is deep wisdom in exploring that quality of standing apart. I suggest you not rush through it. In order to feel your deeper connection to this world, it’s sometimes necessary to feel your sense of separation from it. This will give you perspective. With that perspective you will be able to sense where you are coming from — I mean that literally — and in the same gesture, have an unusually clear vision of where you are going.

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

The Light in August: Your Monthly Horoscope

Leave a reply

Dear Friend and Reader:

August 2011 is one of those months when it will pay to know a little astrology — or even a little bit about the current astrology. The planetary movements of the next four weeks present a number of challenges, just as many opportunities and an occasion to peer into the future. There also seems to be an extended window in which to address certain matters of the past, and to work with the question of emotional balance.

Photo by Eric Francis.

We think we’re a mentally driven society, but I suspect that’s only on the surface. Deeper in, we are moved and in a sense stalked by our own emotions. That’s why we’re so easily manipulated. Since Mercury is retrograde for nearly the whole month of August, let’s consider some of what that suggests — then go into the deeper emotional material.

Mercury starts its retrograde Aug. 2 in Virgo. Because it’s in the early degrees of Virgo (at the beginning of the sign), it will promptly retrograde back into Leo, where it has spent much of July. The image is one of moving inward through layers. We start by questioning some idea of who we are (Mercury stationing retrograde in Virgo, the sign of ideas) and we gradually backtrack toward what seems like an answer, but what is in truth really a deeper inner reality, represented by Leo.

Leo is a unique sign in that it’s ruled by the Sun rather than a planet. Only one other sign is not ruled by a planet — Cancer, which is associated with the Moon. The Sun has a special role; it’s the center of the solar system, around which all the other planets orbit. Every bit of light that we see from planets, the Moon or on our own planet comes from the Sun. Its dual role is a gravitational center, as well as an energy source. When a tree grows, that energy comes from the Sun. When you burn coal, that energy came from the Sun. When you express yourself, you’re using solar energy to do so, and that’s the basic meaning of the Sun in astrology.

Photo by Eric Francis.

Most of us don’t identify ourselves as creative people. That’s another way of saying that we tend not to identify with the Sun in our charts, or rather, we can get distracted by the personality represented by our lunar placement. It’s intriguing that most people don’t know what sign their Moon is in — if you like astrology, I suggest you find out. The ‘aha’ will validate astrology for you, and give you a whole new element to work with.

Mercury retrograde into the sign of the Sun is a way of saying that we’re exploring for, searching out and feeling for the expression of our solar nature. Remember — this isn’t an idea; it’s not a story. It’s an atomic reaction that’s burning so hot, one can be blinded looking into it for a few moments even at our distance. As you feel for this energy, you will feel for how you want to express yourself. Don’t just think about it — reach in and pull out the expressive energy and give it away, just like the Sun does.

As you’re doing this, be aware that something else is happening. For most of August, Mars will be in the sign Cancer. It arrives Aug. 3, just a day after Mercury stations retrograde. That suggests some confusion between the mental level (our ideas about things) and our emotions (energy moving on a sub-verbal level). So remember that. Then Mars does something pretty fancy: it moves along what’s called the cardinal cross — aspecting all those planets in the early cardinal signs (Uranus in Aries, Pluto in Capricorn and Saturn in Libra, among others).

Mars is highly energetic, impetuous, hot, passionate and at times raging and confrontational. Be careful not to pick fights over what turn out to be misunderstandings or incorrect interpretations. Indeed, get your facts right; wait a while and see if you can get to a new level of understanding. Try to see where the people around you are coming from. And be careful when you’re driving. We all know not to drive drunk, but I would add to that under the influence of any alcohol at all, or when you’re overtired or upset. Stack the deck in your favor. And please don’t even ride as a passenger with someone who is out of sorts.

Photo by Eric Francis.

The generous perk of this astrology is opportunities for maturity. Moments when we go out of balance in any way are great times to learn why it happened, what was going on below the boards, and what we can do about it. There are other perks: if you slow down and don’t try to do too much (almost always good astrological advice with Mercury retrograde), there is a lot of passion and creative mojo in these Mars aspects. If you remember that the opposite of depression is expression, you may find yourself in a creative zone like no other.

As for peering into the future: Mars in particular is tracing the regions of the zodiac that are the most involved with the 2012 phenomenon. When that happens, we get a taste of the energy of the future months or years in advance. This works on the personal level and the global level. If you pay careful attention, you will be able to see and experience what is developing. We will, of course, be covering these developments on every channel as they happen.

If you’re curious how this astrology influences you personally, I invite you to check out my midyear report. And of course, you can tune in every day at PlanetWaves.net, and don’t miss my podcasts each Wednesday at Planet Waves FM.

Yours lovingly,

Now Playing: Planet Waves Mercury Retrograde Report

Dear Friend and Reader:

The Planet Waves Mercury retrograde report is done. I’ve recorded an introduction and about 25 to 35 minutes of audio for each of the 12 Sun signs and rising signs. The audio introduction to the Merc Rx phenomenon in general is available to all readers, in which I give a primer on Mercury retrograde and describe key details of this one. The product itself is the sign-by-sign interpretation, which I offer in clear, easy to follow language. As you may know, I am always reaching for the point of sanity in the astrology, the solution set to what seems like an overly complex puzzle. I trust these readings will bring you some comfort, clarity and a few good ideas to work with in these wild and unusual days.

Analemma & the Tholos, Delphi, Greece. Photo: Anthony Ayiomamitis.

Mercury retrograde is a challenging event for many people. I do my best to counter those challenges with creativity and the intelligence made available by a careful reading of the charts. Whether you’re looking for work, sorting out your relationships or trying to turn a corner in your life, I trust you will find these readings helpful.

I’ve had an amazing time creating this report all week in the midst of much other activity — it seemed to create itself as the days went on, and I was a little wistful letting it go as I finished the 12th sign, Pisces. Now it’s on your hands — and I’m happy to offer it to you. If you’d like to hear the general introduction, you may listen to the audio above. (Please note one correction — when I say that the retrograde is 88 days, I mean the full orbit of Mercury around the Sun; the retrograde is usually 24 days.)

One thing about this particular Mercury retrograde is that it crosses the line between Leo and Virgo. We got the first such crossing in direct motion on Thursday. Then we get another in retrograde motion on Aug. 8, and a third in direct motion again on Sept. 9. Some astrologers describe the Leo/Virgo line as the sphinx point — where cat (Leo) meets human (Virgo). The crossing of house/sign cusps blends themes and helps us navigate unfamiliar territory. There are planets hanging out here — Transpluto on the Leo/Virgo line, and Neptune on the Pisces/Aquarius line. This adds some intrigue and depth to the circumstances surrounding this retrograde.

Leo/Virgo is the line where play meets work; where self-expression meets service; where passion meets the details of creative process. For each of the 12 signs I explore that relationship. You will find out what this means in your chart — whether you know your birth time (and hence your rising sign) or not. This report is brimming with personal guidance, strategy points and hints that will help you benefit from this retrograde, based on my experience covering (as in writing about) the past approximately 51 Mercury retrogrades.

If you’re vaguely interested in studying astrology, all 12 signs will be worth listening to because I go over all of the house cusps in one place. The house cusps are each a special zone of their own, each having unique qualities (like an extra 12 houses).

This is a one-purchase-gets-all-12-signs product, so you can read your Sun, Moon and rising sign — and those of your friends and loved ones. You may download or listen as many times as you like. There are some special offers included on the project’s homepage, in case you want to expand your self-inquiry. We’ve also included last year’s audio and the prior year’s written report (The Electric Tide), for the super-curious.

Here is how to get instant access.

Lovingly,

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope – August 2011

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

Additional research on horoscopes for Capricorn and Aquarius provided by Arlene Kramer.

Aries (March 20-April 19) — We have yet to account for how individual emotional turmoil ripples into the world around us, affecting everyone and everything. One step in the evolution of humanity is each of us learning to handle our emotions. I have an old friend who believes that everyone — everyone — needs anger management training. The movement of Mars this month, through one of the most sensitive angles of your solar chart, suggests that you want to be a master of your emotions rather than a slave to them. In all sincerity, both are possible; the more probable of the two will depend on what you want. This is all about what you want, and by that I don’t mean a new surfboard — I mean your definition of happiness. Let’s start with your domestic life; what is your idea of a home that sustains you? What energy do you put out, and what do you take back in? What is it that makes you feel safe? Notice whether events that unfold this month are like or unlike what you want. Notice how you conduct yourself with others; notice what is motivating you as carefully as you can. While you’re observing, I will say this: there is little use for anger, except when expressed as a matter of fact, with the intention of awareness and healing. We all get angry. We have a lot to be angry about, and rage is driving most of the world’s biggest problems. Make sure you use the stuff constructively.

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

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — I know that lots of political movements the past few decades have tried to claim pride as a good thing, as something healthy. In a sense it is, if you think of it as an alternative to shame. But I’m not sure that it is. Pride seems to be more of a form of insulation against the complexity of emotion. This would count for both the emotion of ‘proudness’ and one’s pride being hurt. They’re really not that different. One of the strongest qualities of your astrology this month involves an investigation of emotions that seem loud and bold on the surface, but are in truth sublime and intricate on a deeper level. Yet to discover this, you will need to ask yourself certain questions, and be content, for a while, that you don’t have the answers. Part of having a strong mind is being able to live with mystery for a while. This thing we call the ‘ego’ loves to rush in with an answer, before questioning much of anything, and your charts are rather packed with that right now. Yet just below the answer is a question. To get to there, you will need to follow your curiosity: for example, about why you feel a certain way, or why your reactions to certain people, events and emotions are so strong. The questions may lead to more questions for a while. That’s a good sign. Be as patient as you can be under the extremely restless astrology of August. There is a beautiful moment when understanding will come.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — When seeking money, remember your ethics. When working for advancement in your career, remember your ethics. I say these things knowing we live in a world where the concept of ethics seems outmoded and even useless. I assure you, it’s not. Whatever the current trend in thought, no matter how popular, useful and effective it may be to forego questions of authenticity, or matters of right and wrong, there is such a thing as karma. We are all subject to it. I don’t think you’re an unethical person; rather, I see a spell of astrology where the ends might seem to justify the means. They do not. How you go about something, from the specific methods you use, to the motivation that drives you, is every bit as meaningful as what you accomplish. Indeed, the two are so closely related as to be the same thing: if you notice you’re being driven by some form of ambition, you might want to check your goal and make sure that it’s really something you want. For an extended phase of your life, you are being granted a mantle of power. You have an aura of authority, and that connotes responsibility. I suggest you live like your telephone is tapped and like you’re being followed around by a television crew. Live as if you are actually accountable for your actions. You are. You are also accountable for the constructive, creative and sincere deeds to your credit, but on that particular theme, I suggest you let others do the talking.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — You will need to watch your tendency toward what some call passive aggression during the next few weeks. There’s nothing passive about aggression in any form, but it can wear many disguises, and have many motives. One motive would be insecurity. The planets this month are a setup for attempting to convert an extra-fiery temperament mixed with lack of confidence into conflict, which would be a purely self-destructive combination. The way to recast this into a creative equation is to be in contact with your desires, also with your sense of entitlement. They are two different things, though typically experienced as one. The first thing to do is sort them out. It’s absolutely vital that you be in touch with your desires; that you discover what you want. And it’s equally vital that you experience desire itself as a source of pleasure, without resorting to a sense of entitlement. Of its own, wanting is healthy — especially if you can find in your desire the authentic need to share and nourish others. Yet when you retreat into obsession with having, with achieving or with conquering, or with a drive for getting attention at any cost, that can turn negative fairly quickly. Therefore I would say, give what you want to receive. Get in contact with your deepest desires, and express them in a way that is generous and loving. Be especially kind to women; that means listening, in the first instance, and offering your support in gentle ways, with no strings attached.

Hello Cancerians! Your birthday report is ready. It’s more than an hour of astrology plus a 20 minute tarot reading. Please visit this page for more details.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — We all have those moments when an idea seems to manifest instantly into reality, and for many people they seem to be coming closer together. This is likely to be true for you during the next few weeks. We may not know how this process works, but it may be enough to say that thought is creative on many different levels. The first thing to do is create a space within your mind and your emotions where you feel safe. You can give yourself reasons, or you can stretch into an inner spot that requires no particular rationales. Once you know you’re safe, then fear is a moot point. And from there, it’s possible to apply an abundance of newly liberated energy into creative ideas. I don’t just mean art; I mean ideas for creating the world around you that works for you and your family or loved ones. Every situation you encounter has a positive solution, and is an opportunity for expanding your consciousness. Notice how every one of those encounters is a passing phase, but the thing that remains consistent is you exploring the flow of existence. The world is full of threats; we all know this. And I don’t think there is a person walking the face of the planet who has not noticed how powerful love is, and I mean by the results they got at least once. Yet the mental balance between love and fear can be a delicate balance; we decide which way to go from thought to thought, and moment to moment.

Hello Leo! I’m now working on the birthday report for your sign. Watch this space for additional information.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — The human psyche seems to be arranged in layers. Those who have endeavored to address any significant personal issue have observed something like this. When you go into one layer and explore in a sincere way, you eventually come to another layer, and another. All healing processes work like this: the different attributes of a situation can be experienced as some form of physical, then emotional, then spiritual, which are arranged like the skins of an onion. The deeper we go, the more we can experience this elusive thing we call self-awareness. Mercury beginning its retrograde in your sign on Aug. 2 will take you deeper into yourself than you’ve gone in a while. You will have the opportunity to go past the surface layer of your ideas about yourself, closer into the core material. You have an invitation to challenge every stereotype about Virgo, whether it’s true or not. When you journey toward your own core, past the busy, questioning layer of your mind, you experience something akin to pure heat. When you get to this layer, you might recognize that everything you were told about yourself as a kid was true but only so far. It would seem that your primary impulse is creative rather than service, expressive rather than passive, passionate rather than intellectual. As Mercury retrogrades into Leo through most of August, you will have access to that original core of your psyche — the vibrant, fearless child. While you’re there, light the fire of your adult mind. Don’t just remember what you learn; become that person you once were and in truth always have been.

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

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — The planets say that this is truly an extraordinary month for you on two accounts, which are closely related. One is an opportunity to be the vibrant socialite we know you are. Libra is one of the most laid-back signs, but you’re turning into an honorary redhead with a shock of vibrant hair and an aura to match. The second is that you get to make some wishes with the actual prospect of them coming true. Perhaps ‘wishes’ is a little too passive of a word, but ‘goals’ is a little too business-like. What I mean is discovering in your heart what you want, feeling the pleasure of that and knowing that you’re creating it in that moment. Make contact with your most cherished desires. Most of those involve the pleasure of developing your talent and expressing your brilliance. You have the opportunity to let go of many negative messages from your past; indeed, to transcend nearly all of the typical childhood conditioning about being ‘less than’, or needing to tone it down so you would not threaten your early caregivers. By now you’re familiar with what some of those messages were and how they have influenced you. You’re also familiar with the potency in you that burns karma, turning it into creative fire. I often describe Libra as the human blow torch. If there was ever a moment when that was true, that would be now. Though I rarely give dates in my horoscopes, I’m looking at an amazing chart that says pay attention on Aug. 16 and the few days surrounding it.

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

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — You’re embarking on an odyssey this month. This may involve actual travel to an exotic place that feels like your spiritual home, or the astrology may be referring to an emotional and spiritual journey into some extraordinary inner territory. A third possibility is that you’re taking a ride in a time machine that is giving you a hint what the next three to five years will be about. Whether one or more of these is true, or something else entirely, there are profound encounters in your chart that promise to stretch your capabilities, including your ability to relate to people. There is an element of mastery that will be required from you, however. You are in the zone where your desires directly influence and indeed have an impact on the spheres of others. Some people will be engaging and welcoming. Others will be less thrilled that you’re so confident in yourself. One vital lesson from what you experience is not taking the responses of others so personally. That said, if you notice (as objectively as you can) what those responses are, you will be able to determine your best, most creative points of contact. Another lesson is being bold enough to really, truly understand in your heart and soul that you are loved. This is not something to take advantage of in the negative sense but rather to remember, and feel, and work with in the most creative ways you can. People can see you for who you are, at the same time you’re able to bring forth the best of who you are.

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

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — Someone needs to point out how much energy is consumed when we have to deal with the insecurity of others. Even if you only count the direct results of those who make every move based on their lack of confidence in themselves, that’s a lot of energy. Then there are people who build empires based on their lack of faith in themselves, who become petty tyrants, who spend their lives judging others, and far worse. You may need a strategy for such people this month, and the first element in that plan would be recognizing the phenomenon when you see it. The first sign is when you notice difficulty: in any communication process, in negotiations, in the flow of events. This may not be mere circumstance, and though you may not be experiencing intentional acts of disruption, check this factor of insecurity in those you’re addressing. Once you’ve figured out that someone is coming from a weak place and therefore overcompensating by being disruptive or exerting unnecessary authority, the key is not to get caught up in it. At the worst, the phase will pass, as long as you don’t complicate the issue in any way. For the most part you can feel confident going about your business on the policy that you don’t need permission from others to live your life. You may think you’re pretty good at that one and usually you are, but not always. So this month you will get to master a new level of the game of independence and freedom.

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

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — I read recently that Ray Bradbury wrote the original draft of Fahrenheit 451 on public typewriters that cost a dime for every half-hour. He didn’t have a lot of money and had to work swiftly, even a bit furiously. He invested a little over $9 in dimes to write the original 25,000-word manuscript. The result became one of the most enduring works of 20th century science fiction. Your astrology has this feeling to it this month. You seem to be in line for some kind of creative or professional project that you do under adverse conditions but which benefits from the challenges and the pressure. These situations are not always comfortable at the time; there are some deadline junkies who love those conditions, and I don’t think there’s anyone who hasn’t noticed that constraints around time, space or resources can have a positive effect on the outcome. Therefore, I suggest you not complain about the demands of whatever you have to do, how much time you have, or be especially fretful if things don’t work out as planned. Rather, apply yourself to the goal and more importantly to the process, and get to work. Count on extending your talent right out to the edge of whatever boundary you’re in. Stay close to your purpose and remember, a committee of one gets things done. One other point — Mercury is retrograde (or close to it) just about clear through August. That suggests that you will need to think differently, think your way, and count on the odd chance.

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

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — It’s time to make peace with the truth, as you’ve established it over a long time, about whether your family is a help or a hindrance. Working as an astrologer for as long as I have, I’ve heard many stories of people and their relationships to their families. There seem to be three basic configurations. One involves those who are unconscious of their situation, and who are often under the thrall of the expectations of their parents, no matter how old they are. Another involves people who have made what’s sometimes known as ‘the break’ and have declared their independence in a way that is both physical and energetic. Another common pattern is people who are outcast by their families, which can be devastating or is considered well and good enough because they have nothing in common with them. I suggest you evaluate your situation, and acknowledge what you want. I don’t mean what you want that would please someone else. I don’t mean what would require you to compromise any important personal value. I mean what you know would work for you. It’s true that you may need to transcend guilt and a sense of obligation. It’s possible that you will find yourself in the position of starting over. It’s a beautiful thing that in the current version of Western society, we distinguish the concepts family of origin and family of choice. The truth is, you choose in either case. Choose on the basis of what is truly right for you.

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

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — You have a lot of pent-up energy: your charts suggest you’re like a battery of sexual energy in particular. That also means creative energy, which is the basic life force that fuels all of existence. Consider for a moment what a stretch it is for many people to relate that which is creative and that which is erotic. Perhaps the confusion arises from the many ways in which our culture denatures the creative process in total, buries it in deception and tends to choke off the curiosity that leads directly to expression in every form. Curiosity, too, is a vital factor that often has to be explained. If you would allow yourself to be absolutely curious, about anything you liked, well, where exactly would you go with it? Anyway, at the moment you have a lot of energy, and it’s sitting in a kind of a container. You could view that as repressed, or you could view that as saved up for just the right moment. Indeed, a diversity of such moments are on their way. The question I suggest you work with involves how you release your energy. One big explosion is obviously not a healthy option. I suggest you look for situations that feel appropriate, constructive and healthy. You obviously have patience and the ability to stay self-contained, so use that to your advantage. You also want the right connection. That’s likely to feel like the intersection of curiosity and a place where you feel yourself open up with no effort. You arrive, you start to unfold, you crave the unknown.

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

Between Two Worlds

Leave a reply

Note: I’m at Omega Institute this week, doing a visiting faculty retreat, and just gave a talk on Dharma and Biological Integrity. That link will take you to the full recording –efc

Dear Friend and Reader:

We’re about to experience the last of three closely-related eclipses — a partial solar eclipse that occurs on Friday at 4:54 am EDT. This eclipse will be in Cancer, and is the first in a cycle of eclipses that span far into the future. Centuries from now, astrologers will look back at this event for information about the times they are in, and will use Friday’s chart as a reference point. They will also be curious what was going on in our phase of history, and if they are vaguely imaginative, they’ll wonder what it felt like to be alive now.

Simplified chart for the solar eclipse Friday morning. The eclipse itself is the conjunction of the Sun and the Moon on the left side. You can tell they are conjunct because they are next to one another and have the same number value. The ‘grand cross’ (also called a ‘grand square’) is everything that meets the eclipse at right angles (traced by the purple lines making a cross, or the red lines making a square, in the center of the chart). Pluto (the red golf tee) is opposite the eclipse with a respectable three-degree orb; Uranus is at 90 degrees (the blue capital H, on top of the chart) and Saturn is the yellow lowercase H at the bottom of the chart. The cross includes many separate aspects, such as Saturn opposite Uranus, and Uranus square Pluto. Chiron and Neptune are together in Pisces on top toward the right, and Jupiter in Taurus is above and toward the left.

Astrological charts are composed of some patterns that move quickly, and some that move relatively slowly. The slow-moving patterns describe the historical context that reveals the state of society and frame the personal changes we’re living through. Simply put, the outer planets point to some of our deepest changes and where we fit into the larger changes in the world around us. If we look at the slow-moving patterns in this chart, it’s possible to see this event as a kind of bridge between two astrological eras. One era is what you might call the warmup to the long-speculated-about 2012-2015 period, and the other era is the thing itself — rather than the myth.

The main structure of the eclipse chart is arranged as a crossroads in the early cardinal signs — the early degrees of Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. This is called a grand cross, and its position aligns it with something called the Aries Point — the first degree of the zodiac. When the Aries Point is activated, the energy rises, and a space opens up where deeply personal events share the room with sweeping changes in society. What we call individual experience stands in the same place as collective experience. Of course, it always does. Our private lives are influenced by the public realm more than we think, but when the Aries Point is cooking, the intersection is a little more obvious. We can tell because we feel the sense of urgency, the pull to get involved, and we might take the sense of a critical moment a little more personally.

I trust that readers outside the U.S. will indulge my giving examples using American culture; you can look to your own community for similar examples that will illustrate the point equally well — and if you have examples I would love to hear about them (including how you’re personally experiencing those changes or the call to action).

We have all been eyewitnesses to the effects of this astrology. Between 2007 and the present time, American society has been through a dramatic polarization. Social conservatives and the extremely wealthy have worked together to push through an agenda that both restricts personal rights and concentrates resources at the top. It is indeed one agenda that cuts off resources to the poor, runs wrangle on reproductive rights and attempts to restrict the movement of ordinary folks. This in turn is reflective of a society that’s being run on a divide and conquer theory. In the astrology, we’ve seen this as a series of oppositions between Saturn (a planet said to represent structure) and Uranus (a planet said to represent energy). With that opposition you get some hotly polarized tension. The typical narrative is of regressive versus progressive thinking. We saw one of the last acts in this drama play out in New York State when the Knights of Columbus, worried about what allegedly happened to Sodom and Gomorrah, pitted themselves against people who want to be free to choose their partners on their own terms.

Ferns grow out of a cliff behind the Sanctuary teaching space at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York. Photo by Eric.

This may seem ridiculous, but it illustrates the point of how attached to the past, or an idea from the past, it’s possible to be, and how powerfully this can influence the present moment. The many dramas of this sort have paralleled the Saturn-Uranus opposition in a way that makes you wonder if life isn’t some kind of puppet theater with the planets pulling the strings. Of course, looked at honestly, this can seem like a lot of unnecessary head bashing. Perhaps it took this polarized astrology to make the issue seem obvious.

We’re now leaving behind the Saturn-Uranus opposition — Friday’s eclipse seems to be the last major event in which the aspect features prominently. Saturn is now heading for late Libra and eventually Scorpio, leaving Uranus in early Aries to do its work on the level of individual and collective awakening. Uranus is the planet of revolution and Aries is the sign where we not only hold our sense of self, but where we create it as we go. So, a long series of personal revolutions that spill over into collective progress are on their way.

In this chart, the Saturn-Uranus opposition intersects with another aspect — one that’s just warming up. That’s the Uranus-Pluto square. When you think of 2012, this is the aspect to remember, and remember that it makes seven exact contacts between June 24, 2012 and March 16, 2015. (This same cycle next comes into play in 2046, when Saturn and Pluto make an opposition.) Note that the square has a wider time orb than this 2012-2015 date range. We’ve been feeling its effects for several years, and it will continue to have effects into the end of the decade. But the peak phase of this aspect is going to be interesting, a time when we see some extraordinary changes in society. By that I don’t mean the usual litany of disasters, but some unusual developments that we might have claimed were impossible right up till they happened.

The Hermitage at Omega Institute. Photo by Eric.

The long square between Uranus and Pluto is one of the threshold eras of our lifetimes. It’s the time when anything can change, and most anything will — our job is to participate, envision and adapt.

Yet this will be small comfort for those who are clinging to the past in desperate fear. It might not feel like ‘the past’ to them by the way — it might feel like the only thing they know. We’ve all got a little piece of this working somewhere, and it’s good to know about it because that bit of clinging can be the one thing that holds you back.

There will be people, potentially right near you, who fall anywhere on the range from frightened to terrified. Part of not being scared is being able to assist those who are, to the degree that it’s possible. We all make up our own agendas in life, and if someone’s agenda is to be paralyzed, there is little anyone else can do about it. It would make a lot more sense to observe your own fear dynamics and see how they create resistance within you, and what you discover you can do about this. Remember, you’re not being loyal to your parents by being scared of the same things they are.

The opposite of fear is love, and this can turn up as trust, imagination, a sense of community, a sense of your own potential or what we might get done if we cooperate. There’s the thing we need to figure out the very most: we’re all in this together. Once you’ve tuned out the ongoing propaganda campaign that we have nothing in common, it’s easy to see how much common ground we share (such as the planet itself, the air, the water, the need for companionship, and so on). The common ground in this chart is indicated by Pisces and the planets associated with it.

Fretboard of G&L Comanche. Photo by Eric.

There is a direct energy line into Pisces because the eclipse is trine Chiron and Neptune in that sign (that’s the double green line in the center going up to the right). Pisces is the sign of the imagination, representing the endless cosmic ocean of creativity we can tap into at any time. Chiron is helping us focus our minds on this wavelength; Neptune is providing a rush of fresh, new water into the ocean it rules over. Amidst this clash of the titans, the chart points the way into rich potential and actual freedom.

Yet this is freedom you have to take for yourself rather than be given. The circumstances of your life or the world may require you to make significant changes, or rather to make a conscious choice to alter the flow of your existence. Yes, some things develop in what seems like a natural way and some develop by an overt decision. And who knows: this may turn out to be easier than you think it will be.

Last, Jupiter, the other ruler of Pisces, is in Taurus. This blends the populist realm of Pisces with the individual possession realm of Taurus, enriching both. Our individual lives indeed benefit by a connection to collective resources, and we all have something to offer that will make the world a better place. The thing about Pisces in any form is that it calls for clarity. It’s necessary to be awake, honest and more than a little scrupulous, or it’s possible to slip or get lost in denial. This chart has a lot of protection against such possibilities; with the least cooperation on your part, Chiron in Pisces will keep you focused and awake as you cross this bridge into the unknown.

Remember: the water of Pisces is inherently erotic. If you’re interested in creation, creativity, celebrating the Earth or your own nature, growing, evolving, loving God or Goddess, or loving existence, that’s the one thing to bring with you; the one thing that has no substitute. If you only have one birthright here, that is the fact of being alive and creative. If this is true, it’s true down to the cellular level. Think of your passion, your pleasure and your creativity (they are closely related) as being the deepest expression of your integrity.

Yours & truly,

To discover how these changes influence you personally, check out the Planet Waves 2011 Midyear Report by Eric Francis.

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for July 2011

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

Aries (March 20-April 19) — How does it come to be that we get so over-identified with our relationships? How is it that we confuse them with who we are, and can even think we lack validity, existence or citizenship unless we are certifiably partnered? There are actually answers to those questions if we look at them sincerely. At the moment you seem to be in a situation where your inner development is exceeding the capacity of a relationship. This, in turn, may be conflicting with your tendency to identify with your situation. Now, the cosmic beauty of this is that you will get to define a boundary between you and your circumstances. Indeed, as you clarify this, you will see what you’ve been trying to do for a long time, much longer than you realize. I would remind you that our culture provides exceedingly few examples of what it means to be in a relationship as an individual. For many people, being in a relationship or a family environment is a hedge against that individuality — and I suggest you examine your family line for information about how this may be true in the people who raised you. Ultimately, your drive to grow and become far exceeds any circumstances or the limits that can be imposed by an agreement. If you are indeed growing faster than someone, or many people, around you, then this is something to admit directly, and promptly. At this stage of your life there is no time for faking it, and plenty of incentive to be real with yourself and others.

Click here to order your 2011 Aries Audio Birthday Report.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — There are rewards for letting go of what troubled you in the past, and the things you were attached to in the past that you no longer want or need. Those rewards begin with acknowledging what is real to you, and worthwhile for you, in this moment. That will provide a way to invest yourself in your immediately available environment. You are training yourself in what nourishes you and what does not. Then of course you have a choice of what you imbibe. I recognize the matter of the past can seem extremely complicated. But if we look at its basic elements, we can see that for the most part, the past consists of unresolved feelings that give us very little. Instead of spending our lives unconsciously chasing things that we supposed might fill that gap, we can look directly at those feelings and the situations that gave rise to them. I would note that the situations are arranged in layers. It’s not as simple as linear cause and effect; when you make a discovery, be sure to keep your inquisitive mind on, rather than use a feeling of discovery as a point of conclusion. If you’re just a little persistent, and practice being self-reflective, you can find your way to a new perspective. And while you may be inclined to think of this as a new idea, I would describe it as a new emotional perspective on your own existence — literally, a feeling that describes who you are when you’re not encumbered by expectations of any kind.

Click here to order your 2011 Taurus Audio Birthday Report.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — You have long wanted to stabilize your financial situation and you now have a plan for doing so. The key is going to be sticking to that plan long enough to demonstrate to yourself that it works and is therefore worth pursuing and developing. I would remind you that most of what we learned about money we learned from people who were 1. Not that good at handling the stuff and 2. Happy to impart all kinds of emotional baggage and barbs that came along with their philosophy. Usually, there is a close relationship between being financially independent and being emotionally and psychically independent from your parents. In our society money is one of the ultimate forms of power in our own lives. It’s the freedom to stay or to go; the freedom to be who you are no matter what anyone may think. If you look at the times in your life when you had the least such freedoms, they were likely to be in your family of origin, or within relationships that emulated your family of origin. By emulated, I mean which duplicated the sense of powerlessness over your circumstances that you may have felt as a child. At this stage of your growth, ‘power’ and ‘freedom’ translate to being free from the games of others, financial and otherwise; they translate to the ability to trust your own resourcefulness, and most of all, the ability to feel what you feel without the fear of consequences.

Click here to order your 2011 Gemini Audio Birthday Report.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — The July 1 eclipse in your birth sign is about tying together many loose ends, and reminding you that despite the many stories these threads represent, your life has one theme. We tend to think of existence in categories: self-development, work, relationships, home life and so on. This is a glitch in consciousness that veils the fact that we are each one person living one life. Indeed, thinking in boxes does something more detrimental — it creates the notion that we are separate people within ourselves, dividing our character between worker, parent, individual who grows, person who aspires and so on. Many who have attempted can report on the challenge of seeing yourself as something beyond all of these concepts, and indeed recognizing yourself as something other than a concept. Yet I am intimately aware of the sense of a divided self that afflicts many humans, and which can be especially tricky and tiresome for those born under your sign or with Cancer rising. If you start to feel an inner division, I suggest you turn it into a dialog. Get the aspects of yourself conversing, and consider the viewpoints of both of them, or however many there are. You may be aware of how testy this dialog can get, and thus might want to avoid knowing too much about it. However, you’re on the verge of a major self-discovery that could go a long way toward resolving your differences with yourself. You will then discover that your differences with others were a kind of shadow.

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

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — You may have discovered that you’re more driven by your emotional nature than by your intellect. While this is true for most people (otherwise, advertising would not work as well as it does), in your life this factor can have a veil thrown over it. That veil is being pulled back by the July 1 solar eclipse in your adjoining sign Cancer. If you can see and understand this tendency, it doesn’t have to run your life. There are more creative ways to live, and the other side of that very same emotional aspect of yourself is a deeply nurturing spirit that is both generous and conscious. You can get into some conflict if you resist that quality, and you may be figuring out that you’re a lot happier when you’re offering others the best of who you are. The eclipse is focused on your 12th solar house — the part of the mind that we rarely get to see, or which disappears into the waking dream of life. The 12th is an inner environment, and the eclipse resembles an opening through which you can allow fear, negativity and attachment to the past to be flushed out of your psyche. Let it do its work. The process is not over; it will go on for months, and speed you through the many self-improvement projects you have going. On that note, I would paraphrase Abraham, an entity I started looking into while researching Leo astrology a few years ago. He suggested that the only thing worthy of discipline is feeling good. From that, everything else will follow.

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

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — You’re rather sensitive to what others think of you, though it looks like you’re seeing the benefits in setting some limits to how much you let it affect you. There’s something deep here, and very likely something old. All humans and many other critters need affirmation and approval. That much we can all agree on. What we might disagree on is whether it’s a healthy impulse. I would say that it is, if we can manage to be the first place we go for that approval. Here’s why: If you seek acknowledgement outside yourself, you may be validating your doubt with greater strength than the affirmation providing nourishment. That is counterproductive. If, instead, you get into the habit of answering your own questions (primarily with yes) you will gradually discover that you exist, and that you have a right to exist. That’s what it all boils down to, kid. It’s not about winning the Grammy, the Oscar or even a ribbon at the county fair. All of these things are, at least in theory, designed to inform you that you have a right to be here and to do what you really want to do. At this stage of your life, certain primal instincts are starting to wake up and inform you just how true this is. So if you feel your passion stir, don’t go back to sleep. If you feel your curiosity get restless, go seeking clues rather than assuming you know the answer. And if you desire validation, remind yourself that not only do you belong here — you’re actually here, and you know it.

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

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — You’re figuring out how not to overreact in relationship situations, though there seems to be a good bit available that you can overreact to. The skill of maintaining your balance no matter what others are going through — or offering you, or luring you with — is something that you seem destined to learn. As you do, remember that balance is not a static position. Rather, it’s the art of continual adjustment to your environment. This keeps life interesting and lets you perceive experiences as creative fodder. Saturn currently moving through your sign is a moment of reckoning with yourself: of discovering what it means to be fully authentic with yourself, and then as a direct result, with everyone else. This will teach you to be balanced, stable and optimistic. Saturn moving through your sign will only last a little more than one year from now, and is providing a constant reference point of your boundaries. But Uranus will be in Aries, your opposite sign, for the next seven years, stirring up your environment and offering a steady flow of interesting people and situations. There will, as a result, be plenty to test how steady you are on your pins. Remember that much of balance is flexibility, and you may want to consider embracing models of relationship that offer that above all else. It’s not just that you need freedom; you need to live in an environment where it’s considered healthy.

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

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Mars in Gemini may be making obvious certain splits in your opinion, desires or intentions that have been lurking below the boards for some time. I suggest you not hold yourself as someone of ‘low integrity’ because you have a divided opinion, or seeming inner conflict in a value, or have discovered that you might act some ways and speak other ways that seem to contradict them. We all must come to terms with dualism while we are here in the world of duality. It is ultimately the unified mind that can make this recognition and have the desire to do something about it — though that unified mind can be a challenge to dial in consistently. The more we do so, the stronger we become. As you observe the many ways there are two of anything in your life — viewpoints, people you care about, financial options, diverging ways of life — remember that the mere observation of this indicates both an advanced level of awareness and the power to do something with the information. Seeing the pattern is the first step in the healing process, assuming it’s even bothering you. In fact there are many times in life when we get to have our cake and eat it too; the either-or choices for who we are tend to be false dichotomies. By that, I mean the two viewpoints or possibilities we are presented with conceal something deeper, greater possibilities, or alternatives to the problem that take us to a higher level.

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

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — The most ordinary matters are the most meaningful right now. You don’t need to worry about big goals, grand destinations or even your personal destiny. Stay focused in what you’re doing, and in particular, take care of the material aspects: focus on keeping things running more or less on time; keep your sink empty and your sheets fresh and live the life you’re living. This is a moment when the very larger and seemingly more significant things are incorporated into the seemingly most mundane. Here’s the thing, though — they always are. When you’re working at your very highest potential, what you’re doing is part of life. And as part of that, you always have a basic need to maintain yourself, take care of basic creature comforts, and be present in the moment. What you have now is a setup where focusing on your immediate environment leads you to a sense of a much larger world. This could come from, for example, being more attentive to your phone messages or email, which directly leads to an opportunity. Or the effect may be indirect: you’re feeling rested and like you’ve got a handle on your life, and this gives you a little more space to have ideas, and engage people in conversations. One over-arching message of your solar chart is enjoy what you have. Enjoy the health, the wellbeing, the opportunity to serve and create, that you have at this moment. Relax into this space and you will find it offers you lots of unexpected potential.

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

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Someone close to you seems to have shifted their perspective of who you are. That, or you’ve shifted your perspective and you are seeing someone in a different way, a different light. There is something in your charts about you and the people in your life making emotional space for one another. You need the space to be yourself, and to some extent that exists within the awareness of others; really, it’s something that you give to yourself. At the same time, you have the ongoing opportunity to open space within yourself for the changes and movements of others; that is, to be one who allows rather than resists. Relationships are complex, typically because we try to fit complex individual lives into a format that is way too simple to leave room for anyone to have actual space to grow. You are growing; you are changing; you know this, and at times it has you pretty nervous. Imagine how confident you would be if you knew people would embrace you no matter who you become. Now imagine how confident you will be if you know you’ll embrace yourself, no matter who you become. Self-forgiveness, and self-allowing, are by far the most significant pieces of this equation. Most of what the adults around us taught us when we were little was wrong. In that same spirit, it’s true that guilt is inflicted on us in the first instance, but there is nobody who can un-inflict it except for you.

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

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — It’s safe to let your curiosity be free. Indeed, this may be the only safety because it’s an aware state of mind: curiosity is engaging the world with receptivity. You may have a craving to explore the other side of a feeling, or the deeper, darker side of a creative idea. The thing with curiosity is that typically, when we’re very young, a boundary is set on it. We’re told that it’s dangerous to be curious and everyone has heard the rumor about that cat. This association with curiosity and death actually does a fairly good job of anaesthetizing the inquisitive factor of the mind. Right now that part of you is waking up, in a little tempest. As that develops you may feel like you’re going to exceed some boundary, rule or limit; that’s the thing to cross over. That’s the place where the best feelings are, and it’s a sure way to gradually lure yourself out of the boxed-in enterprise that life has become here in the 21st century. Though there are many external factors that try to push us into a kind of rigidity and then profit from it, we’re the only ones who are able to lead ourselves out. And the way we do that is by getting acquainted with the subtle conflicts, masked desires and odd ways we want to work out our inner polarities. The sensation when you get there is something akin to a blend of danger, release and pleasure. And when you feel that you’re on one of the most elemental levels of the human experience — which is the same thing as spiritual experience.

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

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — Your sign is currently providing an alternative to much of the negativity of the world: the peace-loving nature of Pisces is starting to become an obvious path to many who have thrived on conflict. I suggest you open up to this yourself. Humans are pleasure-seeking creatures. Humans are creative, they love beauty and they’re inherently erotic. Therefore, you may discover that you’re the flavor of the month for a lot longer than a month. Now is the time to allow yourself to be the ultimate Piscean you’ve always wanted to be. Keep easing into the flow of life; make sure you keep the mystery of existence closely in your thoughts. Avoid people who thrive on conflict, or who are trapped in it — and remember, it’s not your job to cure them of anything. You may, at first, need to make certain discoveries on your own about what keeps you alert to beauty, feeling good and craving new experiences. As you learn from those, you will gradually attract people who are curious about your idea of fun. The coming weeks and indeed seasons of your life may feel like someone has handed you the ‘missing piece’ of your emotional psyche. Suddenly you don’t need others for your pleasure; you have yourself, and they are inclined to need you just a bit more than you’ve noticed before. Relax into this reality. You will wear it well; contentment breeds contentment, and as you value happiness, you will draw toward you people who are seeking the same thing.

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