Tag Archives: Monthly Horoscope

Galactic Lunar Eclipse — and Your Monthly Stars

Because the plane of our galaxy is clouded by dust that obscures our line of sight, we need to use non-visual techniques to glimpse what is at the center of the galaxy — in this case infrared. You can see the original with a full explanation on this link at APOD. Credit: Hubble: NASA, ESA, & D. Q. Wang (U. Mass, Amherst); Spitzer: NASA, JPL, & S. Stolovy (SSC/Caltech).

Dear Friend and Reader:

At the heart of the Western zodiac are the signs Cancer and Leo — which are not ruled by planets, but rather by the Moon and the Sun, respectively. In the Northern Hemisphere (where our Babylonian/Greek astrology was invented), those are the warmest months of the year, the richest part of the growing season and most places, a brief interval when we can draw some warmth from the outside, like a lizard sunning himself on a rock.

Antique dishes of some sort, photographed at a dinner party at the home of renowned antique dealers Ivan and Gustav. Photo by Eric.

The Sun arrives in Cancer, the sign of the Moon, on June 21, which is the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere and the winter solstice in the Southern Hemisphere.

Before I describe that chart, let’s go over a few events in the early part of the month.

There will be a partial solar eclipse in Gemini on June 1 (and, oddly, another partial solar eclipse in Cancer on July 1).

The biggest news of June is that Jupiter enters Taurus on Saturday, June 4, where it will be for a full year, uninterrupted by any retrogrades. Jupiter in Taurus puts it in a Venus-ruled sign, and that is good for everyone. It’s a little like a year-long conjunction of Jupiter and Venus. Does that sound delightful? These are the two planets known for giving gifts, and Taurus represents appreciating what we already have.

Taurus is also the sign of honoring what is most important to us, that is, where we may find information about our true values. This happens by experience, not just by studying astrology — so pay attention to what you experience. If you’re curious you can look up what planets you have in that sign and see what they tell you. Jupiter will have the effect of expanding (which is growth), magnifying (so you can see, for healing), bestowing knowledge (a bit of the Sagittarius aspect of Jupiter) or adding a soothing balm (the pleasure aspect of Jupiter, associated with Pisces) to whatever you already have in Taurus.

On June 12, the Sun is conjunct Mercury. This is about letting go of old ideas that don’t work. How exactly do you do that? Know what they are, to begin with. Be aware what doesn’t work for you. Then gradually train yourself to go in some other direction. For example, if you’re fed up with not trusting yourself, be aware of that, then guide yourself in the direction of taking small steps where you can experiment with self-trust.

On June 15, we have a total lunar eclipse in Sagittarius, conjunct the Galactic Center. I’m sure it’s going to look beautiful wherever you can see it (which will be far from the United States, since it happens here during the day), though the chart conveys some beautiful ideas. Here is one: We are all familiar with how the human ego throws a veil over the deeper dimensions of knowledge. That’s why we (think we) have to go after all this spiritual teaching and seek experience and knowledge.

We cannot see our own galaxy from this perspective, but we can see others like it. What you’re looking at here is a spiral galaxy known to earthlings as NGC 6384. It’s located about 80 million light-years away in the direction of the constellation Ophiuchus. At that distance, NGC 6384 spans an estimated 150,000 light-years, but this close-up of the galaxy’s central region is about 70,000 light-years wide — much wider than our own little island in space. The brighter stars are local critters in our own galaxy. This image was created by a collaboration between NASA, the Hubble team and the European Space Agency and appeared on APOD earlier this year.

Think of the Moon as that ego structure which, by the way, is rooted in what we think of as our emotions more than anyplace else. Emotions have a way of overriding the mind. A lunar eclipse is like drawing back the veil of the Moon and revealing what is behind it. And in this case that would be the Galactic Core — the very core of our galaxy of 300 billion stars. All these stars, of which our Sun is one, are glued together by the gravity of a supermassive black hole. We are out on a back road in a rural corner of the galaxy. As a traveler approaches the core, the concentration of stars gets brighter. On the surface of any planet located near the core, it’s as light at night as it is during the day.

The Galactic Core is our homing signal. Astrologically, it’s the closest thing I can think of as ‘God’ in the astrological chart: the homing signal of the soul. It has a direction and a location in space, and in a little while the clumsy veil of the ego is going to be drawn back and will reveal some of what’s going on back there.

Okay, as for solstice: the Sun enters the sign of the Moon, and a new season begins. Whenever the Sun changes signs, and especially when there is a change of season, it plugs into a power source and there is a surge of energy, movement, progress, and (as we’ve seen through the past year or two) a global crisis. Are you familiar with all the outer planet sign changes I’ve been obsessing over lately? That’s what’s behind this emphatic energy shift when the Sun makes a move.

Pluto is still in early Capricorn; Chiron and Neptune are in early Pisces. For the past couple of years, every time the Sun changes seasons, we get a surge of Pluto energy (an evolutionary impulse), and this is an illustration of why our lives and the world have seemed so wildly out of control.

Now — thankfully — we have two elements in Pisces. When the Sun enters Cancer on June 21, it will make a trine to both Chiron and Neptune, opening a flow of feelings, water, healing energy and imagination. We will still get an encounter with Pluto for several days in late June, but this, at least, will be about experiencing the need for growth in the context of what is possible. In personal development, as in art, architecture and ranching, it’s helpful to have a vision, and together with the Sun, Chiron and Neptune in water signs, that vision will come to any who ask for it.

Details about these aspects will be covered on our new Daily Astrology Feature. See you there!

Lovingly,

Planet Waves Horoscopes for iPod, iPad, and iPhone

Dig it! Planet Waves is now available for portable devices through Apple App Store.

This is a free download including sign descriptions and a sign calculator. Then you can use it to purchase Eric’s monthly and weekly horoscopes as well as Light Bridge readings. This is an excellent way for people who are not subscribers to read my horoscopes, so please tell your friends.

To find the app, search “astrology” in the app store — it should come up first. Or, you can search planet + waves + iphone + astrology. Either way it works. Please let us know what you think.

Planet Waves. Here at the right time.

Note, this app requires iOS 4.2 — you may need to update your system.

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for June 2011

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

Aries (March 20-April 19) — You may notice that your life becomes rather quiet all of a sudden. By that, I mean your circumstances are settling, and so is your state of mind. What seemed so urgent just a few weeks or months ago is now more a matter of reflection, and this is the time to reflect. There is a life lesson here: life runs a little like the tides (though somewhat less predictably), with peaks of intensity that don’t necessarily require you to make big changes. The urgency appears to have involved your pressing need for independence in the context of a situation that was keeping you hemmed in. The urgency has passed; the specific situation has not. However, you may notice that it starts to seem less intractable as the month progresses. Despite these changes, the same basic question remains: does this circumstance support your long-term growth? You now have a more mature task at hand, which is to evaluate that question when you’re not feeling like you’re on fire and have to run outside. The question is just as important today as it ever was. It’s just as crucial that you make up your mind, and come to terms with your environment, whether it’s a personal relationship, a career situation or both. You have some big goals. You want to increase your presence in the world. And you want room around you to love the way that you love. Remember your goals, every single day.

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

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — This month something rare and beautiful happens: Jupiter enters your birth sign, where it will remain continuously for more than a year. While Jupiter sometimes has issues of raising image over substance, this is not true in Taurus. As you know, a year is short. You are not usually so keen on making changes to the way you live. Yet Jupiter is inviting you to expand, to make improvements, and to enter a direct relationship with this elusive thing known as fortune. Were there ever a time to begin thinking in abundance consciousness, that would be now. Begin that by counting your blessings. You have many that you don’t usually consider: yes, start with the dry roof and the sandwich in your hand, but quickly move on from there to subtler points like your intelligence, your curiosity and your gift for language. Of all the resources you have, your ability to express yourself is one of the most significant. And for as persistent as you are at sticking to one way of doing things, you can, at a moment’s notice, go into flexible mode, and adopt an alternative point of view — one you had in your vest all along. I suggest you beware of the fear that you will be seen as inconsistent for changing your opinion. This is not a matter of your public image — which by the way is doing just fine. This is a matter of maximizing your happiness.

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

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — There is no fence around the parts of yourself that you need to protect; there is no instruction manual to point out your weaknesses. There is no automatic way to tell truth from lies. Yet you can do all of these things. When you think of the concept of boundaries, substitute the concept ‘discernment’. Your perception is the first gateway to authenticity and right action, and if you use it, you will get better at it. You have a gift for seeing the unseen, so the first step is deciding to trust yourself. That’s the foundation of all success, self-confidence and trust in others. No matter what else you may be doing, you must trust your choices, your intelligence and your abilities. All of that translates into a sound relationship with yourself. I’ve found that most people struggle with trusting their own judgment — and getting out of that is like escaping from a trap that was set for us long ago. You can make authentic progress doing this now. The first step is entering a conscious dialog with your fear — not avoiding or denying it. Another involves knowing the difference between wishful thinking and having faith in yourself or in a situation. And part involves not projecting your own good intentions onto others who are not so benefic as yourself. You don’t need to obsess over how evil some people are; you merely need to recognize them and deal with them appropriately — which usually means staying out of their way.

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

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — One of the things that is never mentioned about your sign is your relationship to dualism: that is, to the property of both psyche and of physical existence that seems to be in a conscious dance of pair-bonding, hemispheres of the globe, two sides of the coin, two sides to the issue, or the unquestioned belief in good versus evil. In many ways humanity is based on this whole notion, yet most of the time, it’s somehow cleverly hidden. It’s hidden, that is, until it’s not. The relationship between separation within and the experience of separation in the world is complex, and there seem to be no easy solutions to the problem. Indeed, we count on being separate from others as a way of experiencing them directly. Yet as you begin to see your hidden inner divisions, and make a conscious effort to heal them, something about your perception of the world will change. While ‘healing’ for most people implies discomfort, the kind of healing I’m talking about is self-reconciliation. That can be pleasurable, as you reveal to yourself aspects of yourself that deeply want to be exposed, unlocked and set free. It’s not the same pleasure as a chocolate parfait. This is a more transgressive kind of exploration, which can lead the way to some interesting relational experiences as your inner relationship opens up. Given the long-term picture of your astrology, what you learn this month will provide useful information for how to guide your life in the future.

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 be feeling like long-resolved fears are suddenly being stirred up: stuff like whether you really fit in, whether you feel authentic and whether it’s even safe to be authentic. These are some of the enormous paradoxes of the social world that we all have to live with. The important thing is that you not try to compensate for any insecurity, or cover it up, or pretend it’s not there. Face the issue directly. Remember, it’s not ‘all you’, but you’re the one in the driver’s seat on resolving the theme of where you belong in society, including what friends you want or need, or determining who you call a friend. One thing that’s clear is that your social environment is changing, and elements are dissolving. In astrology this is about the same house as your highest wishes. By that I don’t mean your goals, but one step beyond your goals. I mean your dreams. One thing that gets in the way of what we want now is letting go of what we wanted in the past, but which no longer serves us. So do a little inventory. Make sure you include taking off the list things that you have attained or become, and keep your focus on what you want in the future. One reason you depend on a measure of over-focus on certain objectives is that your true desires have a tendency to change so fast. Part of letting go of the fast means reassessing your desires quickly. The ones that matter most will come up again and again — that’s how you’ll know they’re real.

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) — A few times the past year, your astrology has hinted at the theme of ancestral material. This is a concept so elusive that few people even have any reference to understand it. We’re sometimes aware of the influence our parents had on us, but rarely do we consider what is passed down, say, through 10 or 100 generations. I suggest you mull over this possibility, remembering that while DNA is shuffled, there are threads that lead directly to events, people and circumstances of the past. Some of them are passed to the present moment with startling precision, usually as thought forms — and one of them may be lurking around you right now. It won’t be that hard to find: it’s the thing about which you feel the most stuck, the thing you keep tripping over. While it’s a good idea to check both your mother’s and your father’s lineage here, and to look at relationship patterns of your ancestors, I suggest you bark up your mom’s side of the family tree. It’s the thing she didn’t talk about that is likely to be the thing that’s hanging you up. Because she didn’t talk about it, it had a quality of not existing, but it did, and though unspoken, the thought form was conveyed to you. A few words come to mind to describe it: covetous, possessive, narrow, proud and stuck. That might translate to a child as, “Am I wrong for existing?” Perhaps not that exactly, but something like 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) — Don’t negotiate too much. In fact, I would say don’t negotiate at all, especially over what is already yours. The people around you want the same things you do; some, or one, is just a little less comfortable with the notion than you are. This may be difficult for you to conceive of, since it’s perfectly desirable to you. If you negotiate, remember that you’re actually participating in someone else’s inner working-out process. It’s better to leave that to them. And it would be great if you remember that you have what this person wants; their issue is that they are likely to be struggling with that desire. Usually we look to others to get us through these things, and we end up getting used as projection screens where others work out their issues. This is precisely what I’m suggesting you step out of the way of. You know that there’s no reason for conflict. You are not in doubt about whether what you, or anyone else, desires is ‘good’ or ‘legitimate’. I would say that you’re looking for a meeting place where you can share with other willing people. So start with the willing others and then get into the sharing. Whether someone feels willing or ready is really their business. Soon enough anyone with any doubts will figure out that desire is healthy, especially the desire to make contact with others. The conflict is a ruse, and when that ends, something else will be revealed.

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) — We’re familiar with the concept of relationship as mirror. What about mirror as relationship? Part of why mirror as relationship is uncomfortable for many involves areas of gender that are distinctly taboo. Most of us openly crave being mirrored by the opposite gender. That is supposedly normal, but devoting one’s life to ‘the other’ can have a way of eschewing a fundamental encounter with self. Within this drama, many crave being mirrored by someone of the same gender, though in a different person. An aspect of the pleasure of this, in part, is that it brings us a little closer to ourselves. Another is that it sets us free of so much conditioning that relationship has to be heterosexual — a struggle that many who are out as queer still have to address on a daily basis. I know I’m writing about this in a horoscope, but we’re talking about sensitive inner territory here, and it’s usually thrown behind all kinds of veils. For example, how many people who have bisexual desires dare to write them in their diary, fearing that someone will find them when they die? While we cannot remove the taboo on erotic or relational matters, it is possible to enter the taboo and explore it, which is to say, explore yourself. For the moment, you may consider the whole matter of gender and sexual identity to be entirely flexible. Everything is optional. Every option is open. It’s all good, the better for getting your feelings into the open where you can figure that out directly.

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) — Jupiter busts a move this month — heading into Taurus for a 13-month visit. Jupiter in Taurus has a nice feeling, introducing some open-ended potential to the solid nature of Taurus, and grounding the fleeting energy of Sagittarius in something solid. The theme of this transit is wellbeing. I like the Spanish word better: bienestar. Think of Jupiter as your star of wellbeing; your bienestar. Here’s a quick rundown of what you might do with that. There are habits you want to break; Jupiter will give you attractive alternatives that don’t skimp on the pleasure. There are habits you want to form, and you want them to be good for you. One key element is shifting work from something you have to do to something that is nourishing. Though commitment may be involved, the most significant step is being in an environment where you can develop your talents. That’s the thing to aim for and that’s the thing that’s likely to happen if you do. Put another way, you need room to expand. Sagittarius is all about space: having your space, taking your space, and for that matter all the weird things that exist in outer space. Sagittarius is about knowledge. Go places where your knowledge is valued, and where you get to experience it specifically as an asset. These things are habits, as are the opposite tendencies, which I will not list here. Start a little at a time, for example, by knowing when your environment is welcoming of you and acknowledging that.

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) — Please don’t let jealousy get in the way. There is always a better guitarist, a prettier model, someone who has been painting longer than you, someone who you perceive as having more freedom. What I suggest you emphasize is the willingness to dare. It’s not as daring as you may think. It’s actually fun; not the riding your bike with no hands kind of fun, but the seductive and satisfying kind of fun. As you expand into this territory, you’re likely to meet your own resistance. That provides you with another opportunity to work through it, or play through it, and go further. Then if you meet your own resistance again, you’ll know what to do. This resistance may come in the form of what you feel it’s okay to tell others about what you desire. Notice these little crises directly, and pay attention to what they tell you about your current state of mind. Note, neither your state of mind nor your values are fixed. They are flexible, mobile, free — they are something you can explore and experiment with. Incidentally, the transit I’m describing is Jupiter ingressing Taurus, which is your house of creativity and pleasure and your solar 5th house. Jupiter loves the 5th house. It can bring a streak of luck, though I suggest you not squander it in games of chance but rather in your human encounters. You need these, and you dearly want to be free of the religion of jealousy that the world tries to convince us is mandatory. The only way to get there is to go there.

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 not easy being an Aquarius. Half the time you feel like you’re from the future, living in a world where next to nothing makes sense. There are plenty of other moments when you feel like you have to hide how smart you are, because most people just don’t want to know what you know. They have that whole ‘don’t make me think’ thing and they may not recognize the expression on your face when you look at them wondering what their problem is. Okay, so much for them. What you are about to embark on is a rather long phase of being comfortable in your knowledge. In a sense, you’re going to be living in your knowledge, and like it there. One way this might manifest is not being so annoyed by how little people want to know, and another way is being happy that you not only know so much, you’re even curious to know more. Right now it’s less important what you do with your vast inner library and more important that you tend to it, keep it clear and somewhat organized and most of all, recognize its value to your existence. Knowledge is a living thing, like a plant. It needs to be loved, watered, pruned, and it needs the right amount of light. You, as a human, need company; the place you call home is the place to welcome those who recognize your intelligence for what it is, which is to say, who recognize you for who you are.

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) — I know I’m a writer and this is probably the best horoscope that (as a Pisces) I could write for myself. I also know how many people dearly, deeply want to express themselves in writing and just cannot, for whatever reason, bring themselves to do it. Jupiter changing signs this month is very, very good for writing. It’s even better for ideas. Much of that goodness will come in the form of recognizing the pleasure of the exchange between ideas and their expression. The thing to focus on is the pleasure and sensuality of your intellectual process. Many writers of yore, and I do suppose a few writers of today, imbibe alcohol as part of the writing process specifically to loosen up and experience that sensuality. While I don’t accept or strive for purity in any form, let’s use alcohol as a metaphor for inspiration. Jupiter is associated with comfort, so work in a comfortable space. It’s associated with imagery, so explore that, in the form of images you love and images that you create. Jupiter is associated with anything international, so bring that into the scene. Jupiter is associated with indulgence, so be sure to indulge what you really, truly want to write, and if you don’t know dive into an experiment and have fun doing it. One last: Jupiter is associated with big libraries. Some time in the next few weeks, get yourself to one of those, so you start this transit off right. And as for wine, all hail the great god Dionysus.

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

Anything But Stuck: A Taurus Adventure

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Dear Friend and Reader:

The mystery of ‘self’ is one of the most persistent questions of modern times. In fact, it seems to be a good bit older; who is this critter lurking behind the mind and the senses? In our own age, many of us have grown up immersed in psychology. Of course, what we think of as psychology started as the study of the soul, and that has long been the domain of mysticism.

Photo by Eric Francis.

However you prefer to slice the orange, May is an exceptionally interesting month for the process of self-awareness. Now, what do I mean by that? I mean the journey of growth and healing that many of us are on, or aspire to be on. I mean collecting on all those workshops you’ve taken, and all those books you’ve read, and all that therapy you’ve done — all designed to help you wake up to being a whole person, with access to your talents and resources.

Still, the question can persist: when we have the sensation that there is something about ourselves we want to change, how do we go about doing that? Or maybe it feels like this: “I have so many options, which is right for me?” Or even, “I seem to have no options at all. How can I make some?”

Think of this as the puzzle of claiming who you are, summoning your resources and deciding that your life is yours to live, and therefore, to change. That sequence of events takes a mix of awareness, understanding and action. If you’re paying attention for the next few weeks, all of those things will be bubbling and percolating in a rather bold way. In the background is Uranus in Aries, which puts the world on notice that self-awakening is the theme of our decade. Then there is Chiron in Pisces, which is deeper, reminding us that soul awakening is the theme of our decade. Gradually, the two levels will merge.

In our immediate moment, this unusually exciting month has just begun with the Taurus New Moon earlier today, May 3. The New Moon happens at a time of year called Beltane, the ancient celebration of The May, famous for the May Pole, the May Queen, and the “bustle in your hedgerow” of Led Zeppelin fame. It’s the time of year for bonfires and frolicking in the fields to make them rich and fertile for the crop that’s about to be planted. This New Moon is packed with both Taurus and Aries energy. The Sun and Moon will be in Taurus, yet we also have Uranus, Venus, Mercury, Eris, Jupiter and Mars in Aries, along with an interesting lunar point called the Black Moon Lilith. All of that is pointing to the unusual array of ‘selves’ we have available to try on.

Taurus wants something solid and unambiguous. Yet lurking right behind it is a paintbox full of colors (mostly yellow, red and orange hues) that we can use to illustrate this elusive notion of self.

Photo by Eric Francis.

Mercury was recently retrograde in Aries, and has been making many conjunctions, emphasizing the point. Still slow and powerful in the sky, Mercury is in contact with many of these Aries planets — in particular, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Eris, in a close sequence. That is showing us option after option for who we can be and how we can feel. There’s a particularly spectacular triple conjunction on May 9 between Mercury, Venus and Eris, the basic message of which is: there are many ways to love, and many ways to express love.

This energy is anything but stuck. Taurus can have a challenge getting going (like the cow in the Far Side cartoon who proposes a stampede, but none of the other cows are interested). Yet mixed with Aries, we get the true nature of Taurus — earthy on the outside, fiery on the inside. There is raw passion inside all of that sensuality, and there’s curiosity too. You can think of the solid nature of Taurus as something to ground into or use as a foundation while we’re busy exploring the more explosive energies that reside below the surface.

To the other side of Aries is Pisces. Much of the developing news this year has involved Chiron and Neptune arriving in the most watery sign of the zodiac, connected with the depths of inner awareness, emotions, creativity and out-of-body communication. We have the constant reminder to be inwardly aware. Chiron and Neptune, both decidedly spiritual influences, are in a long conjunction, lasting many years — and now the conjunction has moved into Pisces. This is an invitation. Yes, the material world and the expression of the personality are interesting. Yet Pisces grants a sense of depth and meaning, the potential to create a vision, and the reminder that only you can know who you truly are.

The horoscopes below interpret these aspects. There is much, much more for you in Light Bridge, my annual readings (in audio and written word) for 2011. Catch you Friday — or see you over at Planet Waves with the Wednesday podcast.

Lovingly, your astrologer

Eric Francis Birthday Audio and Tarot

Birthday audio for 2011 will be available soon. These are extended readings for your sign which explore your solar return for 2011. These in-depth readings cover new subject matter you haven’t read about before, and take a new look at topics I’ve covered elsewhere. Aries will be done shortly, with Taurus soon to follow. I’ll then backtrack and cover the signs that had birthdays earlier in the year. Check for Aries this week and please watch this space for other signs. The readings are about an hour in length and also include a tarot reading for your sign. They were a big hit last year and we look forward to making them available soon.

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes for May 2011

Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Be careful about being right. I don’t doubt — at least on one level — that you are correct in what you’re thinking, but I suggest you be cautious about any presumed entitlement or privilege flowing from that notion. Right is too close to self-righteous, and that won’t work in your favor. The equation, ‘I have this, therefore, I deserve more’, is especially toxic, though it takes subtle forms that you may not notice. Any such feeling is being driven by forces lurking beneath your awareness, which may include the fear of isolation, conflict within your values, or a phobia about not knowing who you are. You may find yourself obsessed with trying to figure yourself out, and to evaluate whether you’re acting in an ethical way. I suggest you measure your happiness using factors such as your sense of abundance, your generosity and your level of fear. This is the time to mix having with giving, rather than to mix having with withholding or demanding. Now, I recognize you may think these are good ideas, but perhaps you’re wondering where you’re going to find the flexibility to keep an open mind. That is an internal matter, something you really cannot negotiate with others. You are not at the mercy of your personality or your conditioning. You are only at the mercy of your awareness. With so much activity in your world, pausing to reflect deeply may not be something that occurs to you naturally; this is your reminder.

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

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — To understand the nature of your inner struggle, consider your parents’ relationship to one another. It may serve as a useful map to your psyche. On what points did they get along? On what points did they conflict? Did they consider one another faithful, and what became of any incident wherein there was some breach of faith? What was their shared experience of sex? How were decisions about money made? Who ruled the roost, and how? Map out their experiences and you will have a tangible way of mapping out your inner reality. You may notice that in your day-to-day choices, you dramatize the harmony or conflict that they lived with, possibly for decades. And what if you don’t know about some of these dynamics between them? You may have an indication of missing knowledge of your inner territory. How would it feel to ask your parents about their most private matters? What subjects could you broach, and which would you avoid? What does that say about your willingness to explore your own motives? Any psychic or emotional exercise involving one’s parents may point to a missing parent, or a relationship that wasn’t really a relationship. This can provide as much information as direct facts; it always helps to be aware of what is missing. One thing is clear: one of your parents may have been deeply mistrustful and envious of the other. How does that dynamic play out in your inner life? How can you foster trust in yourself? This would be the key to your happiness.

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

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — The time has arrived to be bold about your vision, and about putting it into words and especially action. You need all three now; each is an essential ingredient of manifestation. You are past the phase of doing things in a seeming vacuum, or in the confines of your own mind. You are at the phase where cooperation is essential, and where the results of what you create will involve a community experience of some kind. At least that seems to be your intent. Yet if you’re new to this level of accomplishment, you may feel some distinct unease at ‘putting yourself out there’. For example, you have no way to control an idea once it’s out of your hands. You have no control over how people perceive you, no matter how careful you are about guarding your reputation. I suggest, therefore, that you give up on control and stick to the core of what you are offering. Why is it original? What are the benefits of what you’re doing? One thing that I’ve seen a lot of people struggle with is the notion that others will benefit from something that they do, without a direct return to themselves. I can think of few things that would more effectively stand in the way of abundance than being concerned that someone else might benefit from you. Take pleasure in that possibility. It seems that at the basis of your vision is some significant benefit to the world; get that going from day one.

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

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — What you do and what you accomplish is not merely directly, intimately connected to who you are; right now there is no distinction at all. Therefore, project yourself fully into what you’re doing. Bring in every resource that you have, every talent, every idea. I suggest, in particular, that you focus on what you consider your most radical ideas or plans. Radical means reaching into the roots, so what I am suggesting is about depth rather than about how shocking something is. Some may consider it shocking, and one measure of depth is the feeling of being drawn out of your safe zone. Ideally what you begin at this juncture will have a feeling of risk, and of being a little edgy. Ideally you’ll feel like you have to risk your reputation in order to do something more authentic than you’ve ever done. Think of what would be your most idealistic future plan, and then remember that it’s possible to put into action now. At this moment you are opening a door to a new phase of your creative life, which is what you used to think of as your professional life. Therefore, this is the time to claim your deepest mission. Send yourself the message that what you’re doing is real and you will signal this to the world. Let everything you say and do have the same basic message. If you get distracted or caught in externals, go back to the roots of what you’re doing and express yourself from there.

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) — Various religious manifestos claim that mankind is guilty of usurping the power of God. This has always struck me as odd. It seems that religion is what has stolen many precious things from humanity. It tries to tell us who we are and are not; it defines ‘bad’ and ‘good’ in ways that brutally limit us and coopt the study of ethics; and it has swiped cosmology wholesale, taking control over our ideas of birth and death. There is just one artist mentioned in the Bible — Bezalel, whose job is to build a temple (go figure). Last and surely not least, I cannot think of one of the world’s major religions that is friendly to sex. So what of the human experience hasn’t religion usurped? Automotive repair? To a surprising degree, religion has not succeeded in doing much at all to you personally. While it’s better to overestimate the damage caused by turning God into an institution and law book, you seem to have made it into adulthood as someone who has direct access to your cosmic source. You have your own fully conscious ways of discerning right and wrong. And your notion of who you are is defined not by what anyone has told you but rather by your own impressively restless, staunchly independent quest for truth. Man, I hope even half of that is true! It’s certainly what is possible for you right now. Just remember when you run up to Mount Olympus and get some of that fire, you’re not stealing — you’re stealing back.

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 seem to be involved in many different levels of business arrangements and personal commitments. It almost seems that your quest for self-discovery is being distributed among many situations. This can be confusing, though for the past few weeks it looks like you’ve been experimenting with the possibilities and getting a feel for who your potential collaborators are. This process isn’t over yet, though something interesting seems ready to emerge — which is your vision for yourself. It’s as if the more options you see that involve others, the more you see that you’re different, and that nobody’s model or concept fits your life, your plans or your talent. Yet you can, if you want, draw on the resources and talents of many people in support of your dreams, and that seems to be the most productive use of your options. The beauty of the moment is that no one personal contact is defining or limiting who you are. You now know that you make the final decisions about who you are and what you want, and this is the month to stake your turf. Put down a solid foundation now, in terms of a clear declaration to yourself, as well as some concrete action or investment, and you are likely to see an excellent return on that commitment during the next few months. The bolder and the more tangible your plan, the better. One last clue — anything you’re envious of, you can do better. So don’t waste your time on anything except creating your world.

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) — For the 17 years I’ve been writing this horoscope, I’ve been sensitive to the idea that many people have multiple relationships, and that others want to, while only rarely referencing the concept directly. Checking my archive of 12,000 horoscope entries, I’ve used the word ‘polyamory’ just three times since 1999. You just heard the fourth. There’s an old expression in art that form follows function. Your life would seem to be populated by a diversity of truly interesting people at the moment, and full of the surprises, innovative ideas and potential disruptions that they have to offer. From the look of things, you’re interested in several of them, though with different experiences developing independently of one another. One of these influences seems to be radically transforming your vision of yourself, your aesthetic sensibilities and your idea of freedom. Other people have different roles, though the common thread is that you have a point of contact with each of them. There is an equally strong pull to bond with someone in a way that may have been more appropriate for our parents’ generation. Yet you are at a kind of a crossroads where you can look honestly at your predecessors and their relationship style, how that shaped their lives. Remember that nobody is forcing you to make a decision, and you don’t need to follow the old values of the past in thinking that you have to. You have options, and now is the time to keep them open.

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 probably getting tired of working so much — and it seems like a new horizon in a relationship is opening up. I would just offer you a word of caution about one thing. At the moment you’re becoming aware what a multifaceted person you are. This has always been true, though you’re likely to be feeling its true potential now, as you open up to being a full-spectrum human. The relationship situation that might seem so appealing has the potential to limit this nascent awareness that you’re developing. So if you choose to get involved with someone, or take a situation to a deeper level, make sure that you bring your diversity with you. You’re under no obligation to be less of a person so that someone else doesn’t feel threatened. This simply doesn’t work; I’m not saying that from theory, I’m speaking from experience, and not just my own. Therefore, don’t make any promises you aren’t sure you can keep, even if they get you something you want. Be cautious if you think you’re compromising your values system for a good cause. It won’t be long before you figure out that you’re boxed in. At the moment, you’re only at the beginning of your journey of self-expression. I suggest you guard your freedom carefully. Remember that there are concepts of relationship other than the ones that insist you have to give up a piece of who you are as the price of admission. Where you want to be is the place where your whole existence is welcome.

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) — When you look around and you see a world that metes out amoral and unethical treatment of others, I imagine you wonder what you can do about it. You don’t need to look far to see this, and at the moment you’re particularly vulnerable to noticing injustice. The appropriate response is connected to what you think the cause of these problems is. You may have noticed that it goes a lot deeper than most people realize. Humans are confronted not only with an environment wherein there is exceedingly little trust in many relationships, but with constant effort to use that as a manipulation device. You could, therefore, respond by striving for trust within your personal relationships, and do what you can to correct the small injustices that you notice. In a world where it’s considered ethical to take, you could invest your energy in giving. I suggest you strive to nourish the world not as a special activity, but rather as part of all that you do. While you’re doing that, notice what is nourishing about everyone you meet. There is always something. You don’t even need to like someone to find something about them that enriches your perception. And you don’t need to like someone to be friendly and supportive. One simple but bold approach to avoiding exploitation is to set up the various exchanges of your life on terms that are mutually supportive. And if you give a little more than you receive, you will figure out how much you have.

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) — You need a new way to express yourself. There is so much steam and fire in your chart, I strongly suggest you not only vent it but put it to creative use. You may be feeling overwhelmed and looking for a way to calm down; you may feel like you’re being crowded out of your own home or your own emotional body. These are real feelings with actual causes behind them; but it’s not the kind of thing you can fix or sort out in a short time. The sensual world is the place to take refuge. It’s worth reminding you that Capricorn is an earthy sign, so your mode of expression needs a kinesthetic quality to it: something you can wrap your hands around. Music would work well; a hand drum would let you express some of the fire that’s burning in your soul. If you’re going to do art of some kind, I suggest clay rather than drawing, and if you’re going to experiment with a craft, I suggest something more like welding and less like paper mache. Meanwhile, what are all these factors from the past that have shown up, right in the moment when you want to spring yourself into the future? From the looks of your solar chart, the moment you decided you were done with the past, a whole lot more history showed up for you to look at. Have no fear: the force of progress is a lot greater than anything that could hold you down. Just remember to keep your energy moving, and moving fast.

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) — While the astrology of the next month doesn’t give your mind, or your workload, much time off, there are big changes in the home and family angle of your chart. For as restless as you are, the emphasis is now on grounding yourself in a meaningful way. You need a solid base of operations. While you may have many ideas for where or what that could be, you seem well poised to make some significant improvements in your situation. If nothing else, you can get clear about your newest idea of what a home really is, and conduct some experiments to see what fits. There is the sensation of making something new from basic elements rather than walking into a pre-fabricated situation. This is more like building a new house than it is like buying an old one, but the implication is emotional rather than physical. Your knowledge of what makes you feel secure is evolving. Your sense of your income potential is evolving as well. But mostly you seem to be getting clear about your necessity for stability and comfort, and this is illustrated by the Taurus New Moon, which happens in the angle of your solar chart associated with putting down roots. If there is a note of caution, this involves the relationship between jealousy and security. Most people you ask would say the two are related, and that jealousy is a sign of true love. I would say you’ll feel a lot more secure if you understand what jealousy is and why you want a better option.

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) — Everything you see in the world has a point of origin, which was invariably a human idea, decision or action — usually all three. You are at a point in your life when the things you think, decide or go for have a deeply original quality. You not only have the power to make something new, you are very likely doing precisely that. You may not recognize it at the moment; I strongly suggest you bring your full awareness to what you’re doing, and what you can be doing if you give yourself the flexibility and space to express yourself. How you manage space is vital to this, and that primarily involves your mental space. If there’s something you know is important to you, that your soul is calling out to create, make a space for it. By definition the space would be empty at first, existing for the sake of eventually being filled. It will be, soon enough. Have the flexibility to recognize if something a little different comes in; creative process is enhanced by exploring variables in a playful way. But remember your purpose, your initial intent, your true desire. And keep holding open that space, as a conscious strategy. It may be a space of time devoted to a single purpose. It may be a physical space that you work in, or alter. It may be some kind of a notebook or online work area. Remember that these are physical metaphors for honoring and working with the inner space of an idea. Begin in earnest now, apply yourself every day, and evaluate in three months.

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

Eric Francis Birthday Audio and Tarot

Reality Sandwich: Jupiter and Saturn

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Dear Friend and Reader:

The astrology of April stars yet another rare event — the opposition of the two largest planets, Jupiter and Saturn. This has been developing for a while and it’s in full effect right now, but an event in about a week lights up the aspect. Think of this as being like one of those huge barbells you used to see in cartoons, with enormous round weights on either end. Between them is a pea — that would be the Earth. Jupiter and Saturn, the two outermost visible planets, have gradually been forming an opposition since they began separating from a conjunction in 2000. You could think of this as the ‘full phase’ of Jupiter and Saturn, with many things coming to full fruition of everything that started at the turn of the millennium. It certainly feels that way. We sure do feel like we’re at the ‘second turn of the millennium’ — the 2012 era.

From the series ‘Ahau-Cosmos’ by Carol McCloud.

The highlight event that lights up that Jupiter-Saturn aspect is a New Moon on April 3. This is a meeting of the Sun and the Moon. The thing is, it’s thrown to one side of that barbell — the Jupiter side. So what we get is a huge collection of planets in Aries, opposite Saturn in Libra. When I say a huge collection of planets in Aries — the most fiery of the fire signs — I really mean it. We have Mars and Uranus (two sparky, passionate planets in a conjunction), as well as the Sun, Moon, Jupiter, Mercury and Eris. All of these are to one side of the solar system in individualistic Aries; and there is Saturn in Libra, all by itself on the other side of the Sun.

While this is perfect weather for all the madness we have been witnessing in the world (quite a lot has happened since the last monthly column, in fact it seems like 10 years of history has gone by), I am more interested in what’s going on on the inner plane. All this Aries offers the potential for authentic self-awareness or superficial self-centeredness. For our purposes there is a difference. The difference is that authentic self-awareness has to acknowledge everything it comes in contact with. Often it’s easy to dismiss most of the contents of consciousness, to deny or stuff them down. With most of the solar system taking up residence in Aries this month, it will be easier to fully embrace what is present within us; in fact it seems inevitable.

I will offer two examples based on aspects. First let’s consider Mars conjunct Uranus. This is like a fiery creative impulse setting off an explosion of creative energy. I’m not sure who will glaze over wondering what the heck I’m talking about when I say this, since this experience is not usually on the normal buffet of consciousness. However, it’s something we crave: intellectual and creative passion. The thing about this feeling is that it can start to blow around all of the neatly pre-arranged concepts of who we are (cautious person, discreet man, honest woman, good husband, responsible mother, nice guy, etc.). Authenticity can indeed be shocking in our current version of consciousness. There is a definite calling to embrace something unexpected when Mars and Uranus line up this way — for the first time in Aries, incidentally, for more than 75 years. This is not a wake-up call — it’s about actually getting out of bed.

Notably, this act of waking up in the morning may involve leaving someone else sleeping in. Some people like to sleep late, and some like to sleep all day. If you are feeling a call to awakening, that’s something for you to acknowledge and follow.

Another truly novel event this month is how Mercury (retrograde from March 30 through April 23) is making a series of conjunctions to Eris — that planet that caused astronomers to ‘demote Pluto’. Mercury represents mental consciousness, or, you could say, the messages we send to ourselves. Eris represents a fragmented sense of self, and on a good day the many-faceted ways we can think of ourselves. (Which of these possibilities you end up with is a matter of choice and to some extent the strength of your creative will.) Mercury conjunct Eris is about seeing the ways in which we are fragmented, and getting the different parts of who we are to pay attention to one another’s existence. This is more challenging than it seems for most people, because there seem to be so many internal voices, each with a different opinion of who we are.

I suggest you listen to the conversation, even if it sounds like chatter (kind of like when you’re meditating) — but remember that there are much bigger energies moving, and something significant is likely to get your attention. The only thing is, you’ll have to make some room for it, and there is definitely a risk involved.

In the horoscopes that follow, I do my best to map out the psychology for each of the signs, and lure you into your next adventure.

Yours & truly,

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new e-book, Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span.

Attention Light Bridge Subscribers: Light Bridge written readings are now available to those who pre-ordered. If you have not signed up yet, you may do so here. Everyone is invited to read the articles on the Light Bridge blog, which will update periodically. Customer reviews of Light Bridge are collecting here. Don’t miss the free audio introduction to the project that explains how I created these seven-year readings. To everyone: thank you for your patience while we completed the written phase of Light Bridge.

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope — April 2011

Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Two questions for you: what do you really want to be doing, and what do you think is stopping you from doing it? This is a two-part question. The first involves your volition, your sense of potential and whether you feel like you can make a decision about it. The other involves what you perceive as an obstacle in your way. Let’s handle them one at a time. It looks like you know what you want, and you feel like you’re in a position to create it. Your willpower and sense of drive seem to be at an all-time high. You may even mistrust your own impulses, but you know what you want and it’s true that you’ve waited long enough. Yet you seem to have an idea that some external circumstance is holding you back. It looks like a relationship. Indeed it looks like the usual human paradox of having two different things, a relationship and a life. This comes with the idea that you may not be able to reconcile the two. Yet at a certain point you have to be yourself no matter what you think someone else’s expectations may be; that’s another way of saying you are free not to use that as an excuse. Anyone who loves you loves you as you are. On the deepest level this is not about a relationship at all; it’s about you having the self-respect to live honestly.

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

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — You’re coming under a significant bit of psychic pressure, which you may just be feeling as a sense of being pushed, overwhelmed or confused. The astrology says this whole situation is brewing from the inside out; your psychic state, which may involve a good bit of fear and a sense that you’re carrying a lot of baggage, is manifesting as disturbances in the world around you. But you may not be able to parachute directly into all of that. It may be easier to use the external world as a frame of reference for what issues, themes or circumstances to address. Your circumstances present a useful map, and as you give attention to what is calling for healing or evoking fear, you will be able to follow those situations into what I will call root ideas that will help you get an understanding of yourself. One thing you can study is the nature of fear. Note that you may be prone to spikes of anxiety or even panic attacks over the next few weeks. They may seem to have ‘no cause’ or you may attach them to certain individuals in your life. Be mindful about noticing what you project onto whom (i.e., assuming someone dislikes you or is untrustworthy) — and then notice what the truth turns out to be. Then go deeper and figure out why you perceived what you did in the first place. There is a reason, and you can work it out.

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

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — You may seem to be moving against the current of so much that’s happening around you, but you can trust that this is your role in the great journey of life. I suggest you not worry if you’re being contrary, or if you think people perceive you as being so. Part of what you must do is lay an energetic foundation for your own individual will, and for your perception of the world, regardless of what others think. This is not done merely by making up your mind about it; there is an experience factor that’s necessary. And there is a confidence factor. They are all related. As you go through this journey you may encounter pockets of self-doubt, despite your considerable knowledge and awareness. One not-so-small issue is that we are rarely taught how to actually handle peer pressure, a force that is responsible for all kinds of sorrow. We see examples of this all over the place, from the most trivial issues to some of the most important global issues to who refuses to get in a car with a drunk driver because of what others might think. Therefore if you find yourself learning how to be autonomous of mind, if you find yourself engaged in a struggle to honor your own ideas, you can trust that this is one of the most significant growth experiences that we can have on Earth. Whether you turn out to be right or wrong, you will get the same benefits.

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

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — There is no stopping you — unless you have some idea that something is wrong. This is the time in your life to discern fear from an actual practical concern. Remember that, and remember that what you want is what you’re most likely to get. It’s true that you often live with a seeming conflict between the ambitious aspect of your nature and your more laid-back, compassionate quality. Now is the time to go into active mode and set out to achieve what you know it’s time for you to do. Allow your empathy to become passion. Allow your doubt to inform you how confident you really are. Notice the indiscriminate nature of fear and how it rarely seems to offer you anything vaguely useful. Keep listening and you will hear plenty of information that you’re ‘not supposed to know’ or that ‘was there all along’. The reason you’re getting this information is to use it, not to worry about it. Meanwhile, your primary mission is to know what you want, and to connect that desire to decisions. If you ever get to the point where you think you’re acting ‘too fast’, pause and reflect how long you’ve actually been plotting and scheming. Consider how much experience you have. You may be in new circumstances but you’re actually not new at any of this. The value of experience is applying established knowledge in a creative way to new creative challenges.

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) — Belief is a simpler matter than most people make it out to be, but in the grand illusion, it’s fairly complex. It seems to work in layers, which can contain different beliefs, some of which seem to be ‘hidden’. Those seemingly hidden beliefs can seem to work against our prevailing beliefs. I suggest paying attention to what I will call the ‘but factor’ in your inner dialog or decision process. That would go something like, ‘this is true but’, or ‘I could live with that, except’ and so on. Look for the exception to the rule that seems to negate what you know to be true. This is functioning like a kind of censor. In order to make basic progress, to be happy and to live in a direct way, it will help a lot if you are clear about what is true for you. Any exceptions that arise tend to be the kinds of elements that make you doubt yourself, which as you know is painful. I suggest you listen to those voices of doubt and self-questioning and see if you can identify them. Whose voice is speaking inside you? Also, I have a clue from your astrology that each whispering of doubt will contain a goal or idea that will be helpful to claim. The affirmative is right below the negative. If you listen to and acknowledge the question or diversion your mind throws to you, you will find it much easier to tap into the creative idea right below.

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) — Agreements and contracts are the obvious theme of your life right now, but the deeper question involves how you morph yourself to adapt to each of them. In other words, you tend to ‘become a different person’ depending on the commitment you’ve made or the expectation of the relationship. It’s as if you customize yourself for the situation. But that’s really one of the things that wears on your energy the most, and makes your relationships the most challenging. One thing I suggest you confront is your fear of upsetting the apple cart of a relationship or agreement by being who you are. This is a psychological level that’s rooted in a deeper emotional level. You can also go through your current agreements and see if they contain any commitments to others that you won’t be yourself. It may take some courage but you can inform people that it’s well and good that you made that commitment, but it contains an unsustainable compromise that you’ll need to adjust for everyone’s wellbeing. And as you make new commitments and agreements, assess them all on the basis of whether you are able to fulfill them in integrity. This is another way of saying don’t make any promises you don’t think you can keep, or that would cause you to make unhealthy adjustments in your patterns of existence. What is good for you is good for everyone — in that order.

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

Check this audio announcement for information about Eric’s new e-book, Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — I suggest you politely sidestep any dramas that arise in your personal life, particularly if they don’t directly involve you. Someone close to you appears to be going through some rapid changes, and instead of becoming overly invested in whatever is happening the whole situation would be better supported if you did something like keep hot food on the stove. That said, there may be something deeply personally relevant, such as a new meeting or a current relationship taking a kind of quantum leap. You may discover how you really feel about someone, which of course you already knew, but now seem like you might act on suddenly — or that you might respond to in light of someone else making their feelings known to you. I suggest you put the whole situation in slow mode. By slow I don’t mean years, I mean weeks or maybe a month. You’re going to learn a lot about the people in your life in the coming season. You’re getting this information so that you may use it and benefit from it. I suggest you really, truly listen to what people say to you. They might say things that they don’t notice but which you really need to hear. That will clue you into the level beneath appearances. Listen to what people say about their plans and their intentions. Look at the choices they make. Then once you have all the data, make your own decisions.

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) — Easy does it, critter. You’re feeling lots of ‘pick up and go’ right now but I suggest you pace yourself. Set concrete goals and be happy with making some progress toward them every day rather than achieving all of them simultaneously. This is a matter of health and sanity. Yes you have a lot of energy at the moment, however, you’re also running the risk of burning out if you run your psychic engines too hot. What you’re experiencing is the beginning of an extended phase marked by an increase of your mental energy level. Take some time and get accustomed to your new mental environment. Listen for ideas. If you direct your strength in the direction of mental focus and creativity, you will harness that energy a lot better than by overdoing the action piece. At the very least, a good bit of contemplation needs to precede action, and I suggest you do little test excursions to de-bug your plan. I suggest you be mindful of the opinions of others; don’t take what they say so seriously, but listen just in case they’re telling you something useful. Mainly, though, listen to yourself: to that quiet voice telling you everything you need to know. Pay attention when you get a signal that you’re overdoing it. If you keep some mind-body balance, you will be at your most brilliant, and that is saying a lot.

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) — An old friend named Marion once told me: there are no mistakes in drumming. He was a really fantastic drummer, and that gave his idea credibility. Not only are there no mistakes in your creative process, what you think of as a mistake is a kind of deviation that might guide you someplace truly interesting. At some moments this will seem like a straightforward process. At others it might seem circuitous. Where others come into the picture you have to be a little more careful, and it’s pretty clear that someone is involved in your creative process, possibly as a lover or muse. There’s an element of mischief — such as someone knocking on your door when they know you’re busy, seducing you at an inopportune moment (even if only to the movies) and generally provoking your child self to be fully present. If I had to call the theme of the next month, that would be it — paying full attention to the little kid you know you are inside. Like all kids, yours needs some adult supervision, but you can do that in a way that is specifically not parental — more like an uncle, aunt or older cousin. Listen to the brilliant things that little kid comes out with intuitively. Make sure you take some time and play. This child is someone you’re always wanting to make contact with and now you have a chance to explore. Just remember, there are no mistakes in drumming.

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) — You may feel a need to simplify your life. The question is, what part do you work on first? Well, the one that feels the most complex, of course; any aspect of existence that overwhelms you even a little. You may have the sensation that there’s something going on in a room next to the one your mind normally occupies. You’ve tried to get in through the secret entrance behind the bookshelf, but you can’t find it. Who are the voices in that room? Listen carefully — you might notice that they’re the voices of your ancestors. It’s like you’ve got a house full of them but they’re off to the side in that space you cannot access. No, you’re not going crazy — but they might drive you nuts after a while. The question you may be facing is, how do you exorcise these ghosts of the past? And how do you know they’re there if you can’t perceive them? I suggest you look for some changes in your mental or emotional system, such as an energy drain, a symptom of some kind, or a challenge you cannot explain. Here is an analogy: Let’s say you start to notice that the lights in your house are dimming, as if someone is turning on a big appliance. But it’s the middle of the night, and nobody else is awake. Because you perceive an effect, you might then use logic and discern that there’s a cause.

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) — I suggest you take some time and explore what you think is possible. I mean this in the biggest sense. What is actually possible? You might say ‘anything’ but that probably won’t be such a helpful answer; be specific. Right now there seems to be some tension brewing between what you think is possible and what is possible. Now, since they both mean approximately the same thing, the distinction may be difficult to discern, but if you look you’ll see what I’m hinting at. It’s like there are these two worlds of potential, one where something can manifest and another where you fear that it cannot. This reveals something about your psychic structure, and how you process experience. In particular you’re learning about how you go from potential to manifestation. You now have two things in sight. One is your own bursting creative potential. The other is a belief that there’s some odd limit, as if external to yourself, that blocks that potential. I assure you that it does not; but the idea that it might could have a way of becoming a hindrance. So that idea is the thing to keep an eye on; see if you can figure out not just what it says, but who is saying it. This is a message from your past, and if you listen carefully it will be in a voice that you recognize. Then you get to consciously accept or reject that idea and that voice.

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’re starting to figure out that your self-worth comes from you and you only — that’s why it’s called what it is. I gather you’re wrapping your mind and your emotions around the extent to which you’ve projected your lack of self-worth onto others, that is, into relationship environments. These are the situations where, for example, you decided that you were unworthy because you had the idea someone else thought you were. I tell you, I’ve noticed how mean and catty people can be, and it takes discernment to figure out that it’s not about you, it’s about them. This month, the contrast is going to be rather stark. You will get to discover what it’s like to have something approaching authentic confidence and to have the insecurities of others be entirely transparent. This is your chance to claim back nearly all of the inner territory you lost in this push-and-pull struggle that has gone on since childhood. It is true that to brush off the insensitivity of another person you might need to be insensitive for a moment, and that is precisely the point: you actually feel it when people are even a little mean to you, even if it’s inadvertent. Now you can consciously direct your sensitivity toward those who admit to feeling you. Show yourself to those who see you. Take conscious nourishment from the sentiments of those who respect you. All of these things are choices that, as you exercise them, will become ever stronger.

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

Check this audio announcement for information about Eric’s
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Solar Fire, Electric Fire, Cosmic Fire

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Dear Friend and Reader:

In her influential 1951 book Esoteric Astrology, Alice A. Bailey describes several kinds of fire — and looking at the current charts, we have them all happening right now. You can probably feel the vibes.

This is an actual photo, not a cover of a science fiction novel. Two parhelia, the technical term for sundogs, flank the Sun above Stockholm, Sweden. Sundogs form when water freezes in the upper atmosphere, and the flat, six-sided ice crystals float down with their faces parallel to the ground. During sunrise or sunset, each crystal can act like a miniature lens,refracting the light into our view. Photo by Peter Rosen.

Solar Fire comes to mind as the Sun approaches the sign Aries. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, spring is stirring restlessly to life. The relentless snowstorms have eased off, and the Sun is showing his face every now and then. It’s always amazing how quickly autumn turns back into spring. Equinox is when night equals day all around the world, and the Sun enters the first fire sign. Symbolically, Solar Fire is about the full experience of life and the expression of the soul. Bailey describes it as the path of discipleship.

We are now in a phase of increasing solar activity. We’ve been experiencing coronal mass ejections and our electrical systems are particularly vulnerable to bursts of energy from the Sun. I think this is the message that even people who would have never considered doing so consider themselves to be spiritual disciples, which means above all entering on a path of discipline.

As for Electric Fire, Bailey describes this as the individual person identifying with the monad — the spiritual source of everything. We see this illustrated in the image of Uranus about to enter Aries. We get the fire from the sign involved and the sensation of ‘electric’ from the planet involved. Uranus in Aries is about self-awareness and individual awakening, but thanks to this odd energy vortex called the Aries Point — the first degree of Aries — there is a node that affects nearly everyone. It’s where the individual and collective realms intersect. As was said in the 1970s, ‘the personal is political’. When one person wakes up, it’s easier for other people to wake up — and pretty soon it becomes a culture-wide wave of energy.

Uranus is working its way into a square aspect with Pluto in Capricorn. Uranus square Pluto is the heart of 2012 astrology. This aspect is the essence of revolutionary astrology, and if you can’t tell from glancing at the newspaper, the revolutionary spirit is coming back to the world. We experienced similar astrology in the mid-1960s, which woke up not only political activism but also brought surges forward in music, science, technology of all kinds, art and literature.

There was also a fairly massive confrontation — when the people rise up, there is usually something to rise up against. Most of that rising up is more like arising, awakening, and throwing off the long slumber of consensus reality. Uranus in Aries will guide many people into personal awakenings. I am sure it will come as excellent news to many that waking up is the central theme of our new decade.

Dark filament of the Sun. Dark structures like this one, made of cooler plasma suspended above the hotter, brighter plasma of a solar active region, are unstable and erupt often. When they do so, the dark filaments look bright against the background of space. Photo from NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Bailey also offers a concept of Fire by Friction. This is basically what the human who is aware only on the personality level experiences. We have some of that in Saturn in Libra. This is about relationships being tested by necessity or duress, people making choices or taking actions that reveal who they really are to their partners, and feeling the need to get real as the effects of not being real.

In addition to being a manifestation of conflict, Fire by Friction can be extremely pleasant, and is often the very thing we seek out in sexual dynamics. If we do, it’s just a good idea to know what it is and a little about how it works, what some of the results might be — and what else is available.

Last idea: Cosmic Fire. That is illustrated by Chiron in Pisces. Chiron is a fiery energy, full of intention, determination and warriorship. This is a fairly new planet, discovered in 1977, that is the harbinger of the holistic age. For those who love a spiritual or healing approach to astrology, Chiron is your planet.

When we mix Chiron with Pisces, we experience the cosmic energy of that sign becoming focused in a way that we can actually use. Chiron will be in Pisces for the next eight years, so it’s going to become an essential ingredient in our lives. That Cosmic Fire gives us the power to burn off the fog of denial, and it suggests that we can consciously value truth as an option to intentional deception.

On Thursday Mars made an exact conjunction to Chiron, bringing two fiery energies together, and raising the awareness of both. This had some interesting manifestations in the world — as you may have noticed. I’ll cover a few of them in the next article.

God does not need to be an abstraction; God is existence. Chiron is about conscious awareness. Pisces is calling on us to notice the many beautiful facets of existence that we usually miss, and to notice the ways we can thrive on the power of love.

Yours & truly,

Light Bridge by Eric Francis is available. It includes extended-length 2011 readings for all the signs and lots of interpretation of the transits I’ve described here. While I’m offering these as 2011 readings in truth they are seven-year readings that look at all of the longterm events I’ve been writing about, several of which are in effect until the end of the current decade. More information is on the Light Bridge website.

Mars conjunct Chiron in Pisces

Dear Friend and Reader:

There is an aspect happening right now. Tell me if you can feel it: Mars conjunct Chiron in Pisces. I don’t know if there’s any unusual suspense in the air or it’s just my imagination — but it seems to be going around. This is an aspect that involves awareness of and healing the male side of the psyche, and one’s experience of oneself as a man. In a girl or woman it’s also identified with her experience and perception of men. In an astonishing, to-the-day manifestation of this aspect, Pres. Obama on Thursday instructed the federal government to stop defending the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, opening the way for federal recognition of same-sex marriage.

Photo in Krakow, Poland by Eric Francis.

Like just about everything that involves Chiron in Pisces, this is happening for the first time since the late 1960s. In case you’re following the other aspect I’ve been writing about that has a potent ’60s resonance, that is Uranus square Pluto; that is reminiscent of the Uranus-Pluto conjunction that happened to occur in the mid-1960s. Synchronously, that was the most recent time Chiron was in Pisces. So two longterm events are developing right now that have a direct line of energy back to approximately 1960 to 1968.

As for the current aspect, Mars conjunct Chiron: Both of these are warrior energies. Both are yang or male energies. They are set in a vibrational field (a sign) that is distinctly yin or female in nature — Pisces. Note that this conjunction can happen in any sign, though its location will be determined by where slower-moving Chiron is located. Just a few weeks ago Chiron entered Pisces to stay for the next eight years.

Even without Chiron’s influence, Mars is a challenged planet in our era, that is, in the modern world. Men are genetically prepared to be hunters and defenders of the brood, and instead they’re frequently turned into either office workers, or people who are paid to commit various forms of injustice. There is very little defending the brood that happens and there is nearly no hunting; one can purchase a sausage and egg sandwich. The wars that our brilliantly trained fighters are sent to do are the bidding of corporations in mercenary wars. Indeed, the war in Iraq started under a Mars-Chiron conjunction in Aquarius, which I wrote about at the time.

Here in the United States, we have a lot of guns, and a lot of gun deaths. I would call that some frustrated Mars energy. Apart from the deaths there is an obsession with possessing and carrying firearms. This year we’ve seen one glaring example of this problem with the mass shootings in Tucson in early January. Yet sadly this kind of incident has become something that happens on a fairly routine basis.

Meanwhile, wholly organic sexual desire is gradually being criminalized. We have a very, very serious rape problem in the world, and we have an even more serious problem with the extent to which that perpetuates distrust of the men who would never do such a thing. Still, sex is constantly conflated with violence, and pornography is the least of it. The most pervasive images come right on prime time cable television and in feature movies. Yet healthy desire can be treated like the bomb squad ought to be called in.

Mars conjunct Chiron set for Kingston, NY.

Many get this scenario projected at them with various forms of “men are pigs” and “all men want is sex,” accusations which always involve some form of self-denial on the part of the person making the accusation. All projections have an element of denial, which masks the real issues underneath. For example, anyone who says “men are pigs” has a level of gender rage they’re not addressing.

I could go on with examples of how Mars is under stress in our society, even without the influence of Chiron. We could talk about what happens to most desire: it’s turned to shopping. When we bring in Chiron, we start to focus the issues. Mars in aspect to Chiron can add an injured quality, and also begins to resolve the wounding by making it conscious and available for healing.

That is the nature of Chiron: to raise themes, issues and circumstances to consciousness so they can be addressed. While there is often a long struggle around situations involving Chiron, there is also the gradual focusing of power. I don’t mean the ‘sense of empowerment’ but rather the actual awareness that one can direct one’s energy and focus one’s life. In the case of Mars, that’s about focusing the will, the desire nature and shadow material involving desire.

By shadow material, I mean fear, guilt, shame, attack thoughts and any of the disturbances surrounding them. Denial, which often covers those emotions, is also shadow material and a defense against other painful emotions. One of the benefits (some would say drawbacks) of the awareness-raising property of Chiron is that it brings these things to the surface and they must be addressed in a way that is often accompanied by psychic pain. It is, however, productive pain in that it can describe the nature of what hurts, and why, and open the way for healing.

Detail of Mars conjunct Chiron, which was exact at about 4 am Thursday. Mars is the red glyph that looks like the thing on the men’s room door; the next planet over is an orange key and that is Chiron. Notice how they have the same location — 1 degree and 4 arc minutes. Notice the many other planets clustered around them, which amplifies the energy and offers other dimensions of the aspect to consider.

There are many ways an injury connected to Chiron can manifest, and often the person with the aspect will get to make some decisions about how to work with the energy. Mars-Chiron aspects, in any case, are about reconciliation with one’s desire nature. And that nature often is mired in shame, which is invoked when one outwardly expresses desire. As the shadow is processed, the underlying emotion becomes more available in a clear state.

Thursday’s aspect was the first meeting of these two planets while in Pisces. The most watery water sign brings in the emotional dimension. That’s where this is happening: it’s on the feeling level, and we all know how much shame many men have there. Pisces is an essentially feminine energy field, some say the most feminine of all. You could spin a lot of themes off of this, such as the sense of emasculation that so many men feel, and for which they feel compelled to overcompensate. We might consider the root of homophobia, which is a kind of shame around one’s feminine or passive side. This includes many potential situations and it certainly includes sexuality. Personally I think that male desire is being exhausted on the cultural mandate that men are, traditionally, the ones who must exert that desire as a conditioned response to equally conditioned female passivity.

Thursday — as I mentioned earlier — the Obama administration decided to stop defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, a law which essentially prohibits the federal recognition of same sex marriages. This is a step away from the obsessive homophobia of our society, much of which is projected by men at other at men. Homophobia has many roots, one of which is fear of self, and another of which is the fear of letting go of control in sexual situations.

I think that male desire needs a chance to relax, to accept the femininity inherent within its own nature. This aspect is an invitation for everyone to give men a chance to be themselves, rather than who they are ‘supposed to be’ or ‘made out to be’. Women need to be given space to express desire outwardly, but I think closer to the point, they need to give themselves that space and take the chances they typically expect men to take. And we all need to give ourselves room to ease off of our belief in, and our obsession with, weaponry and war as the solution to anything.

Remember that thing about ‘boys don’t cry’? That’s where it starts, and after enduring so many centuries of that — then being handed a gun — we surely do have our healing journey set out for us.

Yours & truly,

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for March 2011

Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — This month it looks like you discover something about yourself that you knew all along and figured out on at least 100 other occasions but somehow it is suddenly real and makes perfect sense. The sensation is something akin to suddenly discovering who you are, which was the person you knew you were all along, and are somehow now miraculously remembering. Let’s not let anyone try to convince us that human consciousness is something that more resembles what we think of as a trance than the mind standing at attention. For many, the trance is like a movie, which has this odd script where every other line is, ‘I’m confused’. Confusion is often a method of denial; it literally means “mix or mingle things so as to render the elements indistinguishable.” Now the time has arrived to unconfuse yourself, which means to see yourself for who you are. You are bigger than your fears. You have more courage and perseverance than you thought you did. And your craving to be free is real. The restlessness you’re feeling is not something you want to medicate away, talk yourself out of, or pretend does not exist. It’s not merely spring fever, though that’s a good way to describe your whole life. Rather, what you’re feeling is your soul calling you to wake up to your beauty and the beauty of life, no matter how weird things currently are on the planet — and no matter how scared anyone else may be.

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

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Your dream life may be going a bit wild lately. How that looks astrologically is that potent planets are either in or edging up on Aries, your solar 12th house. This is what psychologists refer to as the ‘unconscious’ or the ‘subconscious’. Jupiter, which arrived last month, is turning your hidden world into a kind of bold cinematic enterprise. Uranus, which arrives on March 11 to stay for seven years, turns it into a kind of action thriller, full of surprise twists. No matter what someone’s natal sign, Aries can act as the seat of identity. For you this comes through an area of your chart that is half veiled in the dreamtime — and that has not seen too much in the way of sustained new energy in many years. What is being stirred up is not merely your dream life, but rather your awareness of yourself on many deeper levels than you usually encounter. You’re not having a temporary visitation but rather are embarking on an ongoing encounter with your deeper self. This will only be shocking or strange if you don’t know such a thing exists. Your dreams, fantasies and artwork are drawing you deeper into yourself. So too is your social contact, particularly involving groups. You may not realize it yet, but everything has changed in your relationship to the social world, an evolution which at first will feel like a newfound gift for successfully being exactly who you are.

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

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — If you are making a professional move of any kind, the thing to choose among your many options is the one that you both want the most, and where you feel you may not be ready, qualified or willing to be noticed. Often, the thing people would succeed brilliantly at works out to be the very thing they avoid. On this theme, you are in one of the great moments of your life. It’s not going to go away any time soon, but neither will it last forever. You are at a beginning, which is the time to make sure that you set your priorities and your goals in a meaningful way. Those goals can and probably will change, but they provide a point of focus. Consciously working toward something is a way to concentrate your energy. You can unravel a longtime question here by directing your energy in a way that creates something positive and helpful — to you. Creative energy is potential; it has to be activated through awareness and conscious action. The transit I’m describing is Chiron embarking on its eight-year transit of your 10th solar house — the one that covers matters of achievement, reputation and direct involvement with the world. This is a society-wide issue today: a small number of people abuse power, and many others think they have none. Now is the time to claim yours.

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

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — You’re at this rare and glorious moment of bursting free. It may come on all at once: you get this feeling that it’s time to explode through the glass ceiling of existence and feel the sunshine, sky and fresh air all around you. This directly involves the work you do. You may be in a position where you’ve compromised your abundant freedom, individuality or creativity to the point where you want to activate the landing slide and escape with a few cold ones. However, you have better things in store for yourself. With both Jupiter (expansion, knowledge and reputation) and Uranus (invention, revolution) at the top of your chart right now, this is the time to do what you do in an original way that is as much about having fun as it is about succeeding. You could say that a sense of liberation around your work is the first way to define success. As this story unfolds over the next few years, you will have many opportunities to reinvent yourself — though I will say that some will feel so bold as to be a bit frightening, and some are going to come along and reinvent you. The world may not be ready for everything but it’s ready enough for what you have to offer, and these very months are an unusual moment for you to take space that is rightly yours, attended by what you might describe as a wild wind of fortune.

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) — Make a list of the places you want to go, and pick the one you want to visit the very most. Choose a time, research the location, figure out the best places to stay (or find people you can stay with) and GO. One journey will lead to another, which will lead to a new concept of who you are. You may have travelled for growth and adventure in the past — you have the ‘find yourself on the road’ kind of chart. Now you’re in a ‘find yourself on the road’ time of life. If you do want to travel, there is something to be said for doing so spontaneously. When your life circumstance permits, go where you want to go. If your company reorganizes and you find yourself with your days free, put gas in the car and break out the map — in that order. The adventurous transits that take hold of your awareness have other expressions. One of the most vital is about exploring some field of knowledge that really turns you on. Visit the biggest or, alternately, the most specialized library in your area (a fantastic day trip — go alone). Consider opening your home to a guest from far away; there are programs for doing that, from student exchanges to grownup exchanges. Focusing on travel, knowledge and meeting even vaguely exotic people will remind you how young you are, why you’re alive and moreover that you’re alive.

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 are beginning a new adventure in your relationships. I’m going to guess you are taking that as good news. Let me explain why it’s such good news. You have long been howling to the universe for an organizing principle in your human encounters. I have this button stuck to my Sun visor that says, “Being Weird Is Not Enough,” which I am sure you could apply to many of the people you’ve met the past few years. Some of them weren’t just weird, but many gave you the feeling that there was just going to be no dependable point of contact; which in turn pushed you into some reactionary states. Many factors that seemed like permanent institutions the past several years have changed. You seem determined to maintain an identity that exists apart from your relationships — this is a huge relief. And what was an erratic energy is being replaced by a sense of focus, purpose and attention to the underlying emotional material of human contact. I suggest, though, that you be highly discerning who you connect to and how. I don’t mean resistant or defensive; I mean perceptive. Associate with people who speak your language. Listen for the purposes that motivate their choices. Pay particular attention to people who are different and good at it: mavericks as opposed to rebels. Most of all, welcome the people who honor the fact that you are an individual and respect you for devoting your life to being so.

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) — There are many aspects to sex, including two essential ones that are usually forgotten or pushed back beneath the water — the reproductive part, and the dark side. You like sex to be interesting, with some ideas behind it. I assure you these things, though typically avoided, certainly are. You may find the deepest core of your pleasure right in what you or others shun the most. You’re also likely to discover the things that have in the past seemed to take your most daring pleasure from you, or sour it when you get what you want. If you’re able to get as close as you are, you certainly deserve to get the rest of the way. My suggestion is that you move your emotions, fantasies and experiences into the emotional and physical material you are the most embarrassed by, or avoid the most. Embarrassment is a veil that conceals something you’ve been striving to understand. On one level it says ‘turn back’ yet experienced another way, there’s a distinct lure, and that has a purpose of both healing and pleasure. These are closely related in a culture where we always seem to be claiming back something that was taken from us following a larger agenda. There are things that you may feel or experience that you want to share with others. I suggest you do so judiciously, and initially invest in finding out what people know rather than telling them what you know.

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) — Someone close to you is going through something, which is reshaping your concept of what a partner is. Other factors in your chart are suggesting that you’re experiencing a reshaping of your own concept of what you want from relationships. Given your orientation on relationships, this is a significant change, and it’s only beginning. It may seem like you want adventure first and your partners need deep emotional healing first. Assuming that you’re involved in a relationship, I suggest you consider the personal validity, to you, of everything that your partner says they need, or everything they’ve gone through. You can also experiment with the idea that who and what you are will work for them. Meanwhile, I would call your attention to a childhood event involving someone with whom you were intimate that initially shaped your idea of ‘the other’. This may have been a first time (or very close to it) experience that made a deep emotional impression and set your expectations. There was a secondary effect, which was to establish how your being in relationship to one person shaped your relationship to your circle of friends: how you’re perceived, how you perceive yourself, and whether you think you fit in. There is complex sociology to one-on-one relationships, and this has a direct effect on your sense of emotional security and your self-esteem. When you understand this and keep it where you can see it, you will feel a lot better.

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) — I would not be surprised if you go through moments where your confidence is soaring and others where you feel absolutely uncertain about the way you seem to have chosen. The thing is that the confidence and the doubt both feel so real. You don’t know what to believe. Which is authentic? Let’s pretend for a moment that they are on an equal plane, of equivalent value. They are not, but let’s experiment. Which of the two would guide you forward, into your dreams and your desires? Obviously the confidence would. So you can live boldly with intervals of doubt, or you can cower in the shadows annoyed by some intervals of having a vision for your life. Which would you choose? Now, the truth is they are not equivalent at all. You’re living a case of ‘the brighter the light, the darker the shadow’, which is my way of telling you that you’re burning bright at the moment — and you will be for quite a while. This is a new reality for you; for many years, you internalized your power, cultivated an inner connection and often checked yourself when it came time to step boldly out. In the past 12 months that has been changing rapidly and in this very season you may be discovering there is no place to hide. You don’t need one; be grateful of a dry roof, food to eat, something to offer the world and someplace to go.

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) — What an unusual space you’re in — like you are riding on a horse made of lightning, at the same time the capacity for absolute focus has taken hold of your mind. You have more energy available and you’re able to do something with it. Yet in this space it’s essential to send yourself positive messages. The most significant will be to affirm your intelligence and the relevance of your perceptions. You may be depending on those faculties now more than you have any time recently, and you may think that there are many other ‘better minds’ who could do what you do better. Any such thought is merely a self-esteem trap. The thing to remember about your mind is that it works differently, intuitively and creatively. This is true whether you think of yourself as ‘creative’ or ‘intuitive’. When you feel the difference between you and others, specifically in terms of thought patterns, that is the most meaningful difference. You’re also able to perceive a larger world with more colors and nuances, and those around you who cannot perceive those things can lead you to doubt yourself. So, you could say that the question of this era in your life, and the central growth (or healing) focus (as you choose) is: what’s it going to take for you to trust your senses and the mind behind them? The answer that comes to mind is experience, yet the truth is, you already have plenty of that.

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 have the opportunity to resolve an emotional issue that has plagued you for a long time and has been getting your attention lately. I’m aware that healing processes take a long time, which is how long you’ve been at this. You’re inclined to take an analytic or goal-centered approach to healing matters, and when that doesn’t work you take a spiritual approach. The way into this one is to go directly for the feeling. Exactly how does the pain or struggle feel? The information you’re seeking is contained in the sensation of the struggle. It doesn’t translate easily into words or concepts, which is why you haven’t been able to work your analytical magic. It’s down there like an ocean current, invisible from the surface. When you notice yourself in the experience, stop whatever you’re doing and do two things: one is record the experience. Be descriptive, making notes of what prompted you, and any sensory descriptions that come to mind. The next time it happens, do it again. Then, be mindful of any associations to the past that come to mind. They may be totally irrational or delusional, to the point where they feel stupid or silly. That’s the thing you’re after. Go right to that ridiculous, senseless thing and once again, feel the feeling. Make the associations, let it all percolate, and see what you learn.

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) — On the Planet Waves website there’s this thing called the Oracle. It’s a database containing every horoscope I’ve written since 1998. When you ask a question, the Oracle randomly selects one of those horoscopes, providing answers that can be a little spooky. Just now I typed in a two-word inquiry — “integrity check” — and got back a weekly from 2003, when Uranus was entering our sign. This month, eight short years later, Uranus is on its way out. Just last month, Chiron transitioned from Aquarius, where it’s been for five years, into Pisces. Here’s what Mr. Oracle said: “I get up in the morning, sort out the reality of my existence, arrive at my desk and notice that it’s covered with Tarot cards — again. I wonder: am I concerned about the future? Well, why not. This is a very futuristic moment for Pisces. We are at the one-month mark before the first ingress of Uranus into Pisces. Uranus is one of the slow-movers; it takes about seven years to traverse a sign and thus marks an era (this was the chat room era). That Uranus is entering Pisces is one thing. That it is leaving Aquarius, your solar 12th house, is quite another. The 12th is home to all kinds of anxieties, mysterious nameless fears that make most people quite restless. Uranus is an agitator, an exciter, a revolutionary. The change from one sign to another will not be subtle. For the moment, easy does it, and read those cards with an open mind.”

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

———

Eric Francis, the founder and editor of Planet Waves, is an astrologer and investigative journalist. He was working in his first job as a municipal newspaper reporter when he discovered that his editor also owned an astrology bookstore. This began a long relationship between astrology and journalism, which has taken Eric through the pages of many newspapers as a horoscope writer, including the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror plus numerous other venues. Today, Eric covers global turning point events through the lens of astrology. He is a specialist in newly-discovered planets.

The Astrology of the Seasons — and a New Era

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Dear Friend and Reader:

Remember the controversy two weeks ago involving how the zodiac is allegedly wrong?

Photo by Amanda Painter.

While on the one hand it’s a complex technical issue describing how the Eastern and Western zodiacs align, the solution to the riddle that astronomers put out has a simple attribute — the zodiac we use here is based on the changing of the seasons. This is a dependable time-measuring tool, and it also tells the story of our lives. This works both as an ‘astrological’ factor (the cycle measurement part) and as a series of physical events that we remember. If you happen to live, or have ever lived, in a climate where there are four distinct seasons, you know the experience of moving through them is poignant.

The equinoxes and the solstices mark the changes of seasons every 13 weeks or so. Each time the seasons change, the Sun enters a cardinal sign (Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn, called the Quarter Days). At the midpoints of the seasons there are what you might think of as energy peaks or hot spots. These happen when the Sun reaches mid-Aquarius, Taurus, Leo or Scorpio (called the Cross Quarter days). These are equally potent and are considered among the sabbats (or Sabbath days) of the Celtic year. These two sets of days divide the year into eight manageable pieces of about six to seven weeks each.

Not only are we close to one of the Cross Quarters now — when the Sun is in mid-Aquarius, called Imbolc — we are about to experience a spectacular Aquarius New Moon on Feb. 2. Imbolc is the Midwinter holiday here in the Northeast. It translates to ‘in the milk’ or ‘in the belly’, meaning that we’re held in the belly of the stars, in the deeps of winter (if you’re in San Diego, Key West, Maui or the Southern Hemisphere, please use your imagination!)

Whatever the weather may be, this is a turning point, and it points to many others this month. For example, earlier this week, Jupiter entered Aries. Chiron is about to enter Pisces to stay for eight years, and in March Uranus will enter Aries to stay for seven years. These events usher in a new mini-age of astrological history — what we think of as the 2012 era.

Photo by Amanda Painter.

The past three years (longer, really) have been dominated by Saturn making challenging aspects to outer planets. This, we experienced as many wrenching events of history that began to morph into signs of progress that you can see if you’re truly perceptive. The astrological mark of the 2012 era is Uranus in Aries square Pluto in Capricorn. This is a cycle that evokes the optimism and revolutionary spirit of the 1960s, only we’re getting it in a time when the world situation is a lot more critical.

Fortunately, one factor is working in our favor: literally hundreds of thousands of us are spiritually trained. The holistic movement has been going strong since the 1950s, invisibly at times, quietly at other times, boldly at some moments. But I have every faith that the grounding and self-awareness that a great many people have cultivated has the power to carry us through anything, and to make the positive developments more meaningful.

Uranus square Pluto is part of a well-documented revolutionary cycle of events that shows up with breakthroughs in the sciences, literature, music, art and personal growth. They are always times of rapid, fast-forward change (for historians or those who remember, consider the unbelievable story arc from 1964 to 1969). We are now in the midst of something like that, only more profound.

What some call the ‘quickening’ of consciousness is happening. This is true despite the concerted attempts to resist change that come from some quarters; the goo will always give way to the solvent. What the people who have trained their minds in anything from philosophical subjects to the martial arts to spiritual technologies can do — indeed the most important thing you can do — is help to neutralize fear.

Then, the next step is to embody the creative changes that you know are imminent. We are here not to fix the world but to create the world we want, a world we can live in, learn in and where we can celebrate life.

As ever, I write about this regularly on Planet Waves.

Yours & truly,

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for February 2011

Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Do you suddenly have the feeling that you’re living two lifetimes in one? This sensation may have come out of a psychic closet of sorts; it’s been in the background for a while. The sense of ‘two lives’ may involve a relationship experience on the one side, and your experience of your inner world on the other. It could involve two seemingly opposite sets of tendencies that you’re noticing in yourself, such as being bold in certain aspects of your life and cautious in other aspects. Or perhaps you’re operating with two different sets of goals, each of which seems to have its roots in different circumstances. Now, add to this the potential that you’re likely to be embarking on a search for yourself through some social or group enterprise. The setup has the feeling of, ‘if only I could find the right group or the right friends, I would know who I am’. I don’t suggest you take this route. Rather, I suggest you explore the seeming contradiction within yourself. This may be challenging because so many of the factors seem to be external. The thing is, they’re really not; your situation is all about spontaneously discovering who you are in a truly new way. On the inner level, the action piece would include being bold and honest about who you are. On the outer level, it’s about actively being who you are regardless of what you imagine that any social group or relationship partner might think.

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

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — This may be one of the most unusual months in your career for many moons. It’s not merely that so much is happening; it’s that one especially longterm struggle is making an exit from your life. Or it is if you want it to. It is, if you are willing to let it happen. It’s easy for you to get caught in the traumas and dramas of the past, not quite recognizing when they’re over. Now is an excellent occasion to develop that skill. You have the option to boldly recognize that something you don’t need and don’t want is over; that something involves a lack of confidence in yourself. You don’t merely ‘lose your lack of confidence’; the next step is living with the direct experience of the confidence that was previously lacking. This feeling, experienced from the inside out, is not going to solve all your riddles; that involves choosing from among the many options this world presents. But you would be wise to choose on the basis of who you are, not what you thought you were. The way forward is to make decisions based on the present. In the present you will see specific ways that the world has an opening for just the person you are, with just the gifts you have to offer. In offering them, you will reaffirm that you have them; you will get to participate in a whole new kind of direct exchange. This is not about I can; it’s about I am.

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

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — You have a deeper tendency than you like to admit to believe what the people around you believe. This has suddenly become unusually difficult, and you know you’re in a position where you have to make up your own mind about something. So, do what you must, in order to do that. Embark on a fact-finding mission. Allow different people to convince you of their point of view, giving them the benefit of the doubt. Then move on and get another perspective. You will be surprised at all the viewpoints out there. Indeed, you may start to doubt whether there is any such thing as the truth (a condition that is epidemic in our times). Much like the tale of the blind men and the elephant, everyone is wrong, and yet everyone is right. It will be up to you to see the elephant in the room. And that’s precisely what it is — the obvious thing that nobody wants to admit is there. The question then becomes, what do you do with the information you get? You certainly have the option to ignore it. That would be very modern. But what you’re getting is crucial information. And in actual fact, you’re responsible for what you know. The people who only want to see part of the elephant have one thing in common; they have a motive for their point of view. Ask yourself whether you have that agenda, or some other.

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

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — You seem to be in line for an inheritance or payout of some kind — and at the very least you have significant business opportunities available that could work out very well for you. Obviously you cannot take up every opportunity that is presented to you. And not all of them are what they seem. Therefore, focus on what you’re the most passionate about. You can trust that. It might be something about which you have subtle misgivings, that challenges you or that leads you to feel vulnerable. The greatest reward, on many levels, might come from the experience with the deepest emotional risk. You may know the one I’m talking about. Focus carefully and you’re likely to notice how your perspective, not only on these opportunities but also on your whole life, changes through the course of the month. There is something profound that connects you to your source on a fundamental level, and may indeed summon you to many new adventures. Faced with so many possibilities, I suggest that you choose the one or two things that take you deep. By that, I mean that provide the greatest inner rewards, creative satisfaction or contact in a relationship. This is a connection that you may be tempted to think about intellectually, but the true basis for discernment is what you feel in your heart. Feel for a while and you will get the message, perhaps not loudly, but certainly clearly.

To pre-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) — This is going to be the month you learn to filter your environment and choose selectively where to focus your attention. There is indeed quite a lot to focus on — many people are focused on you, seeking your involvement. Indeed, it would seem that you’re simultaneously having every kind of relationship that you can have. You need an organizing principle to sort all of this out — and Chiron entering Pisces suggests that principle is exchange. A ‘relationship’ is one thing; what passes between the people involved — the content of the relationship — is another matter entirely. Therefore, choose on the basis of content. By that I mean what you give and what you receive; who you feel benefits the most, and who is the most inclined to be present when you need them. The few people with whom you have mutual energy are going to stand out. You’re not going to have to think about this very hard. Everyone else can wait. That said, there will be people who will strictly be your benefactors. Have no suspicion about this — they are here to provide resources and affirmation. This may be just one person; he or she is asking nothing in return and part of the spiritual exercise for you is to have no sense of obligation. Life is at least long enough that we have the chance to return any sincere favors without worrying about when that might happen.

To pre-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) — Recently astronomers pulled a hoax claiming that the 12 zodiac signs have the wrong dates, and that there is a ‘thirteenth sign’. I responded with a satire claiming that astronomers had discovered a ‘thirteenth animal’ in the Chinese zodiac — the Mouse, and I compared it to the sign Virgo. I love Mouse because he’s organized and he thinks for the future. He has enough of what he needs. Though we make references to inventions compared to mouse traps, Mouse himself is an inventor. My shamanic teacher, the late Arthur Joseph Kushner, credited Mouse with inventing agriculture — the silo (what we call a hoard). You are in the midst of a powerful surge of energy through your 6th house of your solar chart — the house of applied knowledge. You have abundant information on your hands. You have excellent theories. Now, put these things to use. You also have boundless energy available to do what that might require, and the wits to do it in a fun, inventive way. Remember, as one of my Virgo healer colleagues reminded me at an opportune moment: work smart rather than work hard. I would add that you need to take care of your health on the level of your nervous system. Meditate, take baths and get outside no matter how chilly it may be. Exercise will be twice as good for your mind as it is for your body. Relax and you will be brilliant.

To pre-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) — There’s really only one way to process this much energy, and that is rock and roll. Define this concept as you will: art, music, social activism, passionate sex — anything expressive. That is the opposite of depressive. This is the kind of energy you want to let flow, but there’s so much of the stuff that it’s calling for guidance in truly constructive, creative directions. I only say this because there are other possibilities for how it might manifest, particularly if you’re feeling overwhelmed. And the way to avoid that is to have something better, which is the movement of vital force. This is an excellent time to figure out that you have two basic positions — flow and blockage. It’s the time to figure out from experience, not merely from theory, that energy is energy, and that it is we who turn it dark or light. It happens that, at the moment, plenty depends on your ability to make this recognition real — in that you could easily be overwhelmed by the intensity of the flow; and that you could find yourself with some of the most magnificent creative opportunities on your hands. With this power surge, flowing through the sign Aquarius, you may be inclined to take risks you would not ordinarily take; if you make sure those risks are in a spirit of love and conscious experimentation, you will be safe. Saturn is in your sign, suggesting that you can apply the concept of boundaries in a useful and workable way.

To pre-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) — Emotional discipline does not necessarily come easily to a Scorpio, but at the moment your peace of mind and much else depends upon it. You may be inclined toward dark thoughts about yourself, at the same time rapidly developing situations in your household or family demand that you be fully present. Clearly, this is a time to leave your suspicions in the past and remember that you’re not the center of the universe. You are, however, capable of being the center of your own life; but only if you’re centered. And that is the position from which you can be most useful to yourself and to the people who are depending on you for love, guidance and a vision of what life is about. I suggest you focus on the positive, and see the opportunity in everything. You may feel that’s not possible, but I challenge you to question how serious what you perceive is wrong actually is. If in the event that you are feeling some form of grief or disturbance, communicate that directly in a way that is not intended to cause additional disturbance. This would only come back to you. The solution you seek starts with you, and that, in turn, starts with being honest about how you feel — and discerning why you feel that way. If you look through polarizing filters, it will seem like a matter of right or wrong. If you look through the lens of psychology, you will see opportunities for healing past hurts and mistrust.

To pre-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) — In the midst of many other truly positive developments and activities this month, certain factors may provoke your deepest insecurities, your fear of abandonment or difficulty with endings. You may be inclined to stuff this feeling back where it came from; initially that will be easy enough, because you will have so much else to distract you. I don’t, however, suggest that you succumb to that particular temptation. Tapping into your deepest emotions, no matter how shadowy, will go a long way toward releasing pent-up emotions and give you energy and strength to pursue your most vital dreams. I propose that you view this as an emotional healing process, which has the goal not merely of removing something toxic but also creating something beautiful for yourself. You are tapping into some deep waters that reach back into your ancestral past — quite literally processing the delusions and negative emotions of previous generations. If you can get clear about this, you will see that purging yourself of their fears will allow you greater access to your own dreams, desires and the subtlety of your surroundings. On this note, now is an excellent time to remove aggravating factors from your environment, be they emotional or physical. This gesture would be more than symbolic: these ancestral ghosts I’m talking about take the form of toxins and disruptions that you would in truth be a lot happier without. And you will develop a skill that will come in handy — moving on from what does not serve you.

To pre-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) — Your emphasis for many months has been on guiding yourself to a better place in the world, though this has involved mustering up discipline and warding off pervasive anxiety associated with change and responsibility. What these all have in common is that they address seemingly external factors. The missing element is reaching for your interior reality; that is where you will get perspective. There is only a limited degree to which addressing externals, be they goals, responsibilities, issues or the concerns of others, can help you feel better. Ultimately you need to understand yourself, and not allow what you think of as ‘your life’ to get in the way of that. The challenges you’ve had living from the inside out are dissolving, however. For one thing, the benefits of bringing your focus inward are now more obvious than ever. Yet as these weeks and months progress, something else is likely to take over: a passionate curiosity about yourself. This looks like a deep and unsettling restlessness, which is on the one hand a desire for knowledge, and on the other, a quest to reinvent yourself. While this will clearly reach into the work you do and how you interact with the people around you, the sensation that’s driving you is the desire to break out of any familiar self-concept. Indeed, I would say your real quest is to go beyond any concept of self and straight to the real thing.

To pre-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) — Before you can stop making a mistake you have to notice what you’re doing. Of course this also works for making choices — you must see your options. Your perception of a mistake, a pattern of them, or for that matter any creative choices you have, depends on your state of mind. Beware of a tendency to believe that some past action is going to come back to you. The false logic goes, ‘I’ve been a bad person, therefore I deserve to be feeling all this fear’. If you’re experiencing any permutation of this idea, figure out where, or from whom, it came. I don’t think it’s your original thought; it’s a psychic pathogen that was passed onto you down the generations, or that you picked up in your environment. In these times, we must keep an eye on such factors, as a primary fact of both healing and happiness. Our society is struggling with boundary issues, and right now most of them are psychic. Your planets are calling on you to do two things: recognize the toxicity of guilt, and let it go. The other is to walk a straight and narrow path that calls for keeping your priorities in balance. This directly means assessing everything on the basis of what hurts or helps you. If you can do that, you will also be acting in the best interests of the people around you.

To pre-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) — Experiment with the notion that none of your worst fears are true, and that your boldest visions can come true. This may be challenging, given how much is going on inside that mind of yours, and how many inner voices may be suggesting that you have something to worry about. You may feel as if something is ‘about to emerge’, and this has you nervous. Any negative pre-judgments are wedded to one thing only — your level of fear. This in turn is related to any internal pressure you may feel. Whatever may be the passing astrological weather, you’re at the beginning of a new cycle of experience. This is true on many fronts, but the most telling are that Jupiter, the planet that traditionally rules your sign, has entered Aries, the first sign of the zodiac; and that Chiron is about to enter your sign. Your edgy sensation is about embarking on a whole new phase of your life. This fact will present you with decisions, so do your best to have a clear head when you make them. Know which of your beliefs doesn’t support who you are or what you want. Know that you have a choice in the matter and — as someone once wrote, ‘A belief is a thought you keep thinking’. The solution is not to unthink, but rather to think about what you want, what you value and who you love. Keep your focus. This will be easier than you think.

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

———

How to Cross an Ocean; How to Light a Fire

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“A belief is only a thought you continue to think; and when your beliefs match your desires, then your desires must become your reality.” — Abraham

Dear Planet Waves Reader:

Pisces, as the last sign of the zodiac, represents the primal waters to which thought, action and memory return — and from which they emerge. Seawater contains traces of nearly every element, from oxygen to iron to gold. The history of humanity is contained in the world’s oceans, as rivers course through canyons and cities and carry everything to the shore. Those things carried include the trace contaminants and drugs that have been created during our current age of industry, and which inevitably find their way into the sea — which we then dip into as the supposedly eternal source of food. Meanwhile, scientists have reported a ‘water memory’ phenomenon, where water retains the properties of what it once held, and responds to everything from thought to prayer to microwaves.

Photo by Bev Dulis.

In calendar year 2011, we will learn a lot about Pisces. You can think of the most watery water sign as the universal recipient. It’s the cosmic realm that contains every element, and is the place where the story of humanity collects from moment to moment. The ocean refuses no river.

Pisces is about to receive two new planets, which will shape our experience of life and be reflected in changes in the world we know. One is Chiron, which made a brief visit in 2010. On Feb. 8, Chiron will return to Pisces, where it will stay until it begins its process of entering Aries in 2018. Chiron, which has a wildly elliptical orbit, is currently moving at close to its slowest speed through the signs (eight and nine years in Pisces and Aries respectively); at the other end of the dial, in Virgo and Libra (where it was in the mid-1990s) Chiron sails through a sign in 18 months — faster than Saturn moves through a sign (which takes about 30 months). So currently we have Chiron in its incarnation as an outer planet, slow and powerful. I have many reasons to believe this transit will take center stage, even amidst the truly momentous changes portended in the transits of 2011.

Wherever it may be, Chiron focuses attention, and the oceans (signified by Pisces) need attention. So too does the vast interior of human consciousness represented by Pisces. This last sign of the zodiac works for all of us as a source of creativity, emotional contact and escape from the hard-edged world of the ego. If not for Pisces, there would not be music or art, and sex would not be the same. We would not recognize the subtle shades of our emotions. Yet we tend to pollute this realm with everything from mind-bending psychotropic drugs to contact with 5,000 advertisements a day.

Melanie Reinhart says of this sign, “Forms disintegrate, the past is dissolved and our separateness is relinquished.” These are processes that extend over time, rather than sudden shifts. Chiron focuses energy and accelerates any movement already underway, instigating its knack for healing first by raising our awareness — or attempting to do so. With Chiron in Pisces (the sign of the hidden dimension), we will see what we’ve been missing.

The other planet entering Pisces is Neptune, which has not touched the waters of the sign it’s so often associated with since shortly after its discovery in the 19th century. Neptune is wrapping up a long journey across Aquarius, which began in January 1998. This transit has in many ways taken over consciousness; at the beginning of this transit in the late 20th century, nobody would have believed we would be walking around with computers in our pockets, checking email 200 times a day, and basically investing our souls into cyberspace.

Photo by Bev Dulis.

Few would have guessed that every local police department would be feeding information into the FBI database (not about arrests — they’ve done that for decades; I mean about ‘suspicious’ behavior, your employment history, who you associate with, etc.), something more suitable for the old East Germany than the land of Jefferson and Madison. And who would have foreseen the opportunities this same technology creates for countless digital artists and musicians to create innovative work and share it around the world?

Neptune will exit Aquarius and touch the shore of Pisces on April 4, 2011, staying for a four-month visit. Then in 2012 it will re-enter Pisces to stay until 2025-26. This brief visit of Neptune is another harbinger of the 2012 era, representing a distinct shift in the spiritual vibration of the planet and a new phase of what we can call the history of our inner lives. This influence may overwhelm some; to others it will feel like flushing fresh water into a dry lake.

The extended, simultaneous presence of Chiron and Neptune in Pisces is about developing the awareness and discipline to handle deep emotional, and what you might call mystical, energy. You don’t swim across the ocean — you travel in a boat. The same is true for the oceanic multidimensional realms represented by Pisces. You can think of Chiron as the boat, the vessel which includes such tools as perception, analysis, documentation and — most significantly — boundaries.

The first boundary is where the collective realm ends and the individual realm of self begins.
That is represented by the imaginary line between Pisces and Aries. Uranus has been in Pisces for seven years, stirring things up. In February, Uranus enters Aries, illustrating a radical transformation in our sense of self, and how we express the whole idea of self. We dearly need this shock to our self-awareness. I am trusting that Uranus is going to light the fire of curiosity about self, and remind us how being centered within ourselves is the key to sanity. I don’t mean narcissism and I don’t mean egotism. I mean learning to focus our sense of being at our own core, and relate to the world from that alert, mindful space.

Photo by Eric Francis.

What will protect us from Uranus in Aries turning into an eruption of vanity is Chiron and Neptune connecting us to the spiritual depths of Pisces. It’s as if Chiron and Neptune are helping us reach aspects of soul awareness and Uranus in Aries is helping us project our life force through our personality and body. Together, these transits — which last for years — will help many people wake up to the beauty of existence, to life and to participating in the changes that the world is going through.

Speaking of that — the planets I’ve just described that are making changes in 2011 add momentum to another outer-planet change, which is Pluto in Capricorn. That has been in progress since about 2008, and has come with many changes in society, some of them jarring and frightening. We think of this variously as the banking crisis, the recession, the foreclosure crisis, the turmoil in government, the big hole in the Federal Reserve, and of course the general sense that everything might collapse tomorrow. That is Pluto restructuring the institutions of the world — and our ideas about them. Pluto in Capricorn is liberating something from deep within these institutions — WikiLeaks is a good example. They are having their corporate structures rearranged, and we are having our minds rearranged. We have to think about where and how we fit in differently than we did yesterday.

So it’s a good thing that we have Uranus in Aries reminding us to wake up to who we are. Now, here is a clue about 2012. That’s the year that Uranus moving through Aries first meets Pluto moving through Capricorn. This is called the Uranus-Pluto square. This is part of the cycle that delivers some of the most radical astrology ever documented by historians — the astrology of revolution and of revelation. Think of how this is developing — society changing, perhaps seeming like it’s ‘failing’, while at the same time individuals are awakening to our creative power, one at a time getting into the process of creation and change.

The Uranus-Pluto square describes the place where radical self-awareness (Uranus in Aries) meets the vast and sweeping changes that the world is going through (Pluto in Capricorn). We all know the world is changing, and we all know that many of us feel a profound need to rethink who we are and find our role, our place of participation, our point of influence. We may feel driven by passion (Aries) and practical needs (Capricorn) as part of an urgent series of awakening events. The thing to do in the midst of it all is to feel: to be present with your feelings, and to notice what your senses are telling you.

Uranus in Aries is here to light the fire of self, and Chiron and Neptune are here to guide us across the ocean of our soul.

The horoscopes that follow explore these themes as they apply to each of the signs. They are a summary of my comprehensive 2011 annual edition, called Light Bridge. This is a special website that offers extended readings for each of the signs in both written form and audio — and lots of other information about the 2011-2012 era.

I’ll see you there.

Yours & truly,

Note About the Annual Edition — To clarify for readers new to Planet Waves: each January we produce an annual edition. It has a different name each year; last year, we published Cosmic Confidential, and the year before, Next World Stories. This year it’s called Light Bridge. The annual edition includes extended readings for each of the signs, plus additional articles looking at the global astrology from both personal and political perspectives. If you would like to read a bit about my method of doing these readings, you’re invited to check out this article titled “Holistic, Holographic” on the Cosmic Confidential Diary. Sign-up information is below each of the interpretations that follows. –efc

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for January 2011

ARIES — How many commercials have we seen promising some version of ‘the new you’, whether it was for a workout gadget, hair color or a mental outlook offered in a self-help book? Despite our collective obsession with personal renewal, this seems to be something that rarely works. Part of why involves our attachment to the past, and the typically human fear of change. Yet these tumble when we have a vision that we want to create with passion.

With Uranus entering your birth sign for the next seven years, your sense of self becomes something entirely flexible, and you may have the feeling that anything is possible. That is true: yet what, exactly, do you want to be possible? Over the past few seasons you’ve had a clue. It may have seemed like something too good to be true, or impossible because it was so amazing. That’s the thing to guide yourself with. Don’t worry about whether it seems possible, or concern yourself with plotting every step in the process. You grew from a zygote into a fetus into a child and then an adult understanding nothing about how that worked on the anatomical level. Thank goodness for DNA.

The DNA of Uranus in your sign suggests not merely personal renewal but rather ongoing personal revolution. It may take a while to figure out what I mean, but it will become obvious. From the inside, this may feel like the desire to burst free even though you did precisely that yesterday; to drop every pretense you ever put up; to act boldly and immediately, instead of taking years to plan things that rarely happen. Something inside is seeking to set itself free. In short, this transit brings out your true nature, as if a veil is being lifted off of your psyche.

Your inner awareness is being joined closer with your daily expression. You will be able to tap the rich potential even of what seemed like negative developments, or things that seemed inconsequential. Whatever may have happened during the past four seasons, trust that the world has made room for you, for the work you want to do, and the person you want to be in your deepest relationships. Patience may be the most challenging virtue you can muster in these seasons of your life. This is a new kind of patience — one based not on waiting, but in cultivating trust in yourself, practiced like yoga from day to day.

What you’ve just read is the abbreviated version of your 2011 annual forecast by Eric Francis. To pre-order Light Bridge, your full-length 2011 reading including written and audio segments for Aries, please go to this link.

TAURUS — Though most descriptions of your sign cast you as practical, grounded and organized, you have one of the dreamiest minds around. This is due to the influence of the watery signs on your chart. It’s why you can find yourself getting caught in fantasy, and it’s why material things often take so long for you. The story of your astrology for 2011 and well beyond is about gaining clarity. Most of that clarity is to your emotional nature. You are sensitive; the solution is about enhancing and focusing your sensitivity rather than toning it down. Though it may seem odd to say, your true liberation will come from fully honoring your inner life. That will set you free to act with confidence in the world.

One of the most exciting aspects of your journey through the next four seasons involves figuring out that you create who you are by allowing your gifts and talents the opportunity to come forth. At times this may feel like a ‘path’ of discovery, but that’s an illusion of time. By focusing your intentions and your desires, you tap into what is already within you on deeper levels than you’ve accessed before. You can do this whenever you want. You have no reason to depend on who you were yesterday no more than you must put off any goal into the future. Part of your inherent creativity is the ability to come up with a new idea today, and another one tomorrow. And you can. Yet the thing about having a lavish imagination is that it truly helps to be disciplined about it.

As part of that discipline, I suggest you transform your perception of everything you’ve considered a fault into an asset. For example, if you consider yourself a procrastinator, you can discern the thing you’re most motivated to do at any given time — such as choosing the thing on your ‘to do’ list that’s the most fun. If you do that consistently, you will not only get everything done; you will be able to go beyond the feeling of ‘having to get it done’. If you are a raging idealist and don’t think the world is ready for you, then test out your own belief and try something specific and see what happens.

The trend of your life is moving away from theorizing and into action; away from guilt and into pleasure; away from being concerned about risks and toward being a kind of test pilot of the soul. As you experiment in all these ways, remember: manifestation always proceeds from an idea into tangible form. That idea is based on knowing what you want, and choosing that. The one thing that stands between the idea and its expression is, most often, what you believe. So if you want to make real changes, change what you believe. Notice self-defeating beliefs, and adopt new ones. It’s easier than you currently believe.

GEMINI — It can be challenging maintaining a balance of power between you and the people in your life. That is especially true when so much in the world seems to come down to a question of power or control. The essence of balance, in that case, is making sure your life is guided by more creative concepts, but the first thing to do is respect power for what it is. This way, you can enter a direct relationship with it; from there you will have the feeling of dancing with destiny rather than merely being subject to it.

The difference only becomes clear through experience. Now, the question is, how do you get there? At the essence of your growth mission is freeing yourself from emotions that tend to lock you into certain relationship situations ‘against your will’. First among these is guilt. Next on the list is your sense of obligation. Then comes a tendency to honor the status quo. You may experience a value that says someone with more money is a better person than someone with less of the stuff. All of these notions are ideas you have inherited rather than invented — and what you are doing at this stage of your life is giving back that inheritance. To whom? To the ancestors; to a culture that defined your relationships before you had a chance to; to your family for the examples it set.

You have your own ideas, and this is the time in your life when you get to express them — if you want. As you take apart the ideas from the distant past that don’t work for you, the next step is to evaluate people and events on their own merits. That implies applying your discernment to every situation in your life. This is more than most people are willing to do, because if you’re wrong, then the error is all your own. Yet if you’re correct, then you have nobody to thank but yourself.

You are seeking more social freedom than most people would ever dream of. One of your most cherished dreams is that of absolute individuality. Thus, never apologize for being yourself. And remember that embracing what works for you always involves letting go of what does not.

CANCER — It is truly amazing what we take on faith, and what we reject supposedly on the basis of rationality. How many people bite into a hamburger assuming that it’s wholesome food? How many times have you decided that there isn’t a place for you in the world? How often have you feared you were incapable of something, then turned around and did it well? It’s time to put your faith where it belongs — in yourself.

While you often seem at the mercy of external influences, your program of self-mastery involves turning those influences to your advantage, rising to the occasion of whatever you’re presented with. Other times you’ll need to recognize something is a projection of your own fear rather than an actual factor of your environment.

Indeed, rising above fear is the greatest gift you can give yourself. You don’t need it. In truth it has never served you; it’s neither protected you nor nourished you. Fear gives bad information, and so does guilt. You have been feeling the calling to set your own goals and define your own purpose. To do that, you need to feel bold and, in a sense, innocent.

Be aware of the rules and affinities created by your loyalty to groups and organizations, whether they are as far-reaching as national identity or religion, or as close to home as your family and your most intimate relationships. Often we don’t see these for what they are until we make some attempt to define ourselves as an individual. That’s when it becomes obvious that something seemingly external may be standing in the way of being real. As it turns out, it’s actually not external — it’s something within our own minds and beliefs that we can change, and this is what is gradually dawning on you.

You may not consider yourself a rebellious person, but you are stepping into a bold phase of your life where in actual truth, you can achieve anything you want. Define this by a tangible purpose. Focus on that. I don’t mean a principle, such as ‘helping people’, but rather a direct goal of some kind. There will be a strong temptation to rebel against, which doesn’t get anyone so far. Therefore, create in the affirmative. Create a vision and if you have to rebel on the way to getting there, go for it. Most of that rebellion will consist simply of being yourself.

LEO — The concept of belief is one of the most significant and invisible issues of consciousness. Belief — not truth — often runs the world, and tends to run our lives. What we believe becomes what is true for us, and then that perceived truth refines itself. The problem is that most people have no clue what their beliefs really are; they are not articulated, nor subjected to critique. This is how people come to believe many things that have no basis in reality. You’re in the process of having all — and I do mean all — of your beliefs about yourself up-ended, which I would say is some of the best news in years. This may feel like it’s happening overnight, though it’s part of a long process of figuring out where you stand with yourself.

That is another way of saying you’re discovering your potential, and I dare say that as this happens, the feeling will be shocking. You may find yourself exploring entirely new domains of possibility on a daily basis. For a measure of distance, consider how far your ideas are from the ones you were raised with. To get a sense of that, make a list of the ideas that guide or guided the lives of your parents. Then consider the ideas that you want to live by. This will he a helpful exercise every time you encounter one of the bursts of liberation that seem all but inevitable over the next few seasons.

One of the things that becomes liberated is your inventive nature. If you feel that your ideas lack solidity, remember that it is you who gives them life the moment you think them. Consider that the leap from supposed nothingness to a concept is far shorter than from concept into its expression.

Meanwhile, you may feel like you’re under some kind of odd spotlight that is making your soul visible to the world. This may feel like vulnerability, one that is based on having no choice but to be real about who you are. Really, that feeling is the sensation of encountering your strength. The concept ‘original intention’ comes to mind, that is, suddenly remembering what you came here to do, and why. In this process, it would be healthy for you to make friends with how little money means to you, when you get to the bottom of your values system. It’s not that you don’t enjoy or appreciate money, but rather it does not serve as a direct motivator in the way that you so often see in the world around you.

Rather, you are driven by your devotion to service, to excellence and most of all to community. Community is a resource for everyone, and you are a resource for the people who surround you. As you connect with and draw strength from your true values, you will find that money is much more abundant and indeed more useful. It’s presence will be a matter of faith and not of deserving or of labor. The thing to place emphasis on is time. Your perception of time is changing, and that includes the value of time. The time deficit that the world seems to be experiencing is happening in the midst of a world obsessed with planning and speculation. You have little need to do either of these things; rather, your creative power, your deepest contentment and freedom from anxiety come from using your time wisely in the moment you are living.

VIRGO — Always give yourself a third choice. Whether you’re deciding where to go on holiday or looking at a seemingly complex dilemma, if you see two possibilities, create a third. While you’re creating extra possibilities for yourself, meditate on the idea that everyone is learning, you among them. It’s the happy, conscious learners who are the most successful and who make the most out of their experience in the world. One of the most meaningful things we are learning here is how to make choices and see options.

With Chiron entering your opposite sign, Pisces, you may at times have to face an unusual kind of directness in certain intimate partnerships. This may feel like a plunge into intimacy and at other times like you must get serious, and at others like being backed into a corner. If you react defensively, you will validate negative emotions and compound them; if you respond with awareness and creativity you will figure out that in the process, you create your experience of life.

You may occasionally have this feeling of not knowing who is a friend and who is a foe. I would, in this case as in many others, suggest you go for a third option. Your old definitions of ally and enemy have not served you so well, as you’ve shown some extraordinary allegiance to people who have harmed you, and turned your back on those who would help you. In truth the roles that certain individuals take will be more complex than ever, and this will summon an ever-increasing level of discernment. The most valuable kind of discernment is emotional rather than intellectual. You will know who someone is by how you feel in their presence. You will know that a task or goal you set out for yourself is worthwhile because you feel an opening and a pleasant sense of rising to a challenge. The challenge represented by Chiron is always some form of integrity.

Yet it will benefit you immensely if you don’t seek outside validation. Experience that validation when it’s there; see it for what it is; but don’t go after it. Rather, affirm your own talents, your existence, your desires and your dreams. Be the one who comes through with assistance and affirmation for yourself before you expect or even desire anyone else to. Others are eager to support you, but for the moment, the first move is yours.

LIBRA — You have yet to discover yourself as the source of traditional wisdom that you are. While most of humanity is busy living in a world that makes no sense, you’ve been cultivating contact with the firm ground of reason and sanity. I realize your life may not always feel like this, but even incidents that provoke you serve to support your goal of mental and emotional grounding. It would be fair to say that your deepest goal is to be emotionally autonomous. This provides a value in itself, and it gives you a sane point of observation when the world around you goes a bit mad.

One thing you are doing is tapping deep into the knowledge of the past. I don’t mean ‘caught in the past’ but rather having access to a rich mine of forgotten ideas that will serve you well, as you bring them into a modern context.

Yet at the same time you may be experiencing something stirring in your ancestral past. Skeletons may be chattering in the closet. Certain members of your family of origin showing their true, and perhaps weird, colors. What you have here is an opportunity for transcendence. You are no longer beholden to their emotional ways, customs or rituals. Let everything in the world be a reminder of who you are.

This year is likely to develop into some unusual, even extraordinary, experiences of relationships. You may not be able to tell right away if something is innovative or disruptive; if the energy is about rebellion or innovation. It may be all of the above, in the most productive and positive sense of the concepts. While you may feel like you have to be forward-thinking to handle what you’re experiencing, remember that in many ways you are practicing time-honored traditions. One of those traditions is about how, in truth, the experiences of human relationships are one long experiment.

The story of human relationships, taken as a whole, is anything but the story of monogamy. In our natural state, we people are tribal, inquisitive, explorers and inventors. If in the midst of any situation you need a reality check, here is a simple one. Can you tell the whole truth about your experience to everyone around you? Can the people you know do so? You are safe where you can be honest. Honesty is a sign of wholeness and the most fertile ground of intimacy and freedom.

SCORPIO — While few would call you meek, there is a thin line between a man and a mouse. Remember that if you hear yourself state some of what you want rather than all of it; if you express part of what you feel rather than your actual feeling; or if you censor yourself because you’re worried what someone might think. Speaking from the core of your values will get results — indeed, results far beyond what you ever expected. It’s also true that to the extent that you have not had the results you wanted, you were denying something you know is true at your core.

I recognize that this is an ongoing quest, and yet it takes on particularly strong meaning this year — and will do so increasingly.

One thing you seem to be figuring out is how toxic guilt is. That is a discovery worthy of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. The question then shifts to: once you get clear about that fact, and you discover that the opposite of guilt is love, what is the most loving action to take? Guilt supports many other seemingly unrelated thought systems and ways of organizing reality. When you divest your loyalty from guilt those thought systems can collapse — that is, within your own psyche, and you may for a moment have the sensation of having no bearings.

You obviously want to make changes in your immediate environment. You need a more passionate, alive and exciting climate in which to work and play. You need the rules of life to reflect current reality rather than what reality is ‘supposed to’ be. Your environment will, over and over, send you this message. It may come in the form of ‘unplanned’ disruption to things that were not working for you. You may discover that you’re extremely restless or fed up with your life and need to try something different. If you do, this experiment will be a potent source of vitality for you. In short, everything about your chart describes a person craving the unfamiliar.

Don’t worry so much about others. They each have their own agenda, and they care less about what you do with your time and energy than you think. But whether you allow yourself to be free comes back to the question of guilt, which is why I suggest you become genuinely clear with yourself about this. Sanity is freedom. You need both.

SAGITTARIUS — While most descriptions of your sign cast you as freewheeling and a bit over the top, you know how deeply you adhere to certain core principles that have always served you well. Now those principles are changing as fast as the times in which we live. This is not to say you’re going to fly off the rails, but rather that you don’t need to cling to concepts that have worked for you in the past, and that you are now abundantly ready to let go of.

Just as any tradition must change in order to be alive, one’s personal ethical principles go through an evolutionary process, if we are actually feeling and thinking. For many this means growing more conservative as they get older, which typically means frightened and disgusted. You seem to be growing in precisely the opposite direction — refusing to let fear run your life, and embracing the human condition in total. It’s a great gift that you are big enough a person to do so. In the process you will gain authentic independence from mainstream views that, in truth, seem to serve very few of the people who adhere to them.

Chiron entering Pisces suggests that you are gaining profound sensitivity to your environment. This is true on every level — be it your home environment, the ecology of the planet, or the emotional weather in any situation that surrounds you. Your enhanced sensitivity is likely to have two distinct effects: one is to shift your relationship to your family, in any form that concept takes. Certain things that were bearable will no longer be acceptable. Certain things that are toxic will actually feel that way. And you will seek emotional grounding to a depth that is unusual and in fact may be unprecedented in your life. If you find yourself in an emotional crisis of any kind, remember that. Getting in or even near water will help, be it a bathtub or Lake Tahoe.

This year, take another step toward a highly specific mission. In Western terms we usually call this a career. That’s not necessarily the right word. What I am describing is bigger and more important; it’s a quest that combines your most ‘extreme’ and unusual skills with the single-minded determination that is the hallmark of your sign. What I am describing is not a role and it’s not a job — it’s the thing you came here to do.

CAPRICORN — When I was about 22, a friend took me to meet his guru. I had about five minutes with her. We sat down on a yoga mat in a big, empty room. She looked at me and said instantly, “You have maturity. You lack confidence.”

Your charts this year are all about gaining confidence that you may not know you lack. Maturity is something you’ve possessed very nearly forever and could frankly do with a little less of; confidence is a challenge in a world that always seems to have the upper hand. The basis of confidence is within, if we’re to learn anything from the lives of people who have had absolute power but who were totally insecure. You are having to learn this confidence as you go, even as you encounter experiences that keep shaking you up, rattling your sense of identity and in the end, serve to push you out of your shell.

I suggest that you begin to associate confidence with vulnerability. I know that all the common ‘wisdom’ goes the opposite way, that the more piled on with defenses a person is, the more confident they seem (to some). Yet that’s not actually true; it’s an illusion, at best. True confidence arises from being close to your edge, and willing to stay there — and that is a vulnerable place. As you get to that spot where you realize you’re not emotionally secure, slip into it like a hot bath. If you reach the spot where your concept of your identity is crumbling, allow the concept to fall away and your true self to come through.

When you find yourself tasked with a challenge that calls on you to take leadership but don’t necessarily feel qualified, remember that most of leadership is about responding to an authentic calling, and listening to people as much as you might speak to them.

As for being able to do with a bit less maturity: gradually as the years press on, you’re figuring out that a deep element of the meaning of life is your ability to enjoy and appreciate each moment as it passes, each human encounter, each small step toward freedom. That’s what we usually think maturity specifically denies. In the subtle words of the poet Ginsberg, remind yourself: I have become another child. I wake to see the world go wild.

AQUARIUS — The inner life of an Aquarian is complex, and I trust that you are finally seeing the need to simplify. These mazes in which you get caught, the ones that have the names of family members scribbled in lipstick or shaving cream all over the mirrors and walls, take up space and wandering through them takes up energy. The thing about a maze is, once you’re in you’re in — so how do you get out?

Well, you can memorize the pattern from within and navigate toward the exit. You could try the psychic equivalent of pushing on one of the walls. If the walls are solid, you can climb on top to change your perspective and look around. You might call out to see if anyone else is in there with you someplace. When you find your way to the exit, keep going in some direction other than back in. Just remember — whatever the maze represents, it was there before you were born, and part of your quest for freedom involves going beyond the drama and futility that certain of your ancestors thought was normal. What is this structure made of? In a word, fear. And you have some awesome incentives for not being caught in something that has served humanity so poorly for so long.

You must know you’re on the cusp of a big advent or adventure. You may have the feeling of having endlessly prepared for something that you are now waiting to have happen. Using birth as a metaphor, you’re at that stage of the process where it’s time to push. Initially this will involve pushing your vision. That might mean writing the first draft of a new concept, rough as it is. This is about taking the initial tangible step toward creating something. Working with imagery will be genuinely helpful: imagery, that is, instead of a concept or idea. Describe in visual detail what you want to create. Don’t worry about how, or what might go wrong — focus on what is affirmative. This may take some daily discipline. Create a space and make it happen.

When, suddenly, the momentum of your life shifts and events proceed faster and more tangibly than you imagined, these drawings or descriptions will prove to be vital. Don’t be surprised if what you actually create far exceeds your initial concept.

PISCES — This is going to be an unusual year. I mean that in the best sense of the word. In one of the most touching Sun-sign horoscopes I’ve ever read, Rockie Gardiner in the mid-2000s made a comment to Pisces about how the distances you are crossing are so vast, you may have no sense of where you’re going or whether you’re ever going to arrive. You are now in a phase of arrival. Like most things in astrology, this happens in phases and in layers, though at this time, you are at that point in the process where you actually see and feel the results.

The journey has changed you. Being in a constant confrontation with the unknown, you’ve learned what to do in an environment of uncertainty. That’s been a little like learning to walk across a high wire, which is not such a useful skill until the day comes when you have to walk across a narrow ledge, and then it’s easy. You’ve learned to exist in an environment that is only marginally supportive of who you are. You’ve learned to breathe air instead of water — a good trick for a fish.

And what now? The world taking shape around you is responsive to your ideas. You are able to grasp where people are coming from and respond to them accordingly. It is mysteriously easier to manifest resources. You have some radical ideas, and you can get them going. As regards ideas, don’t just ‘try’ them — become their very embodiment.

The single most significant thing you can take with you as you dance with your transits through 2011 is: be bold about being different. I don’t mean different for its own sake. I mean as different as you are, with courage and curiosity in your heart.

Chiron is going to be the most prominent energy in your chart, and Chiron is always different for a purpose. The most vital skill you can develop is mindfulness. That is the art of being aware from moment to moment, and experiencing life as a constant dynamic between your feelings, your thoughts and your choices. This is also the year to get very good at taking care of your health. I state these things not so much as goals but as essential tools you have unusually direct access to, and can cultivate — tools that will serve you well in the wild and unknown country you are about to enter.

———

December: Sagittarius Sun, and an Intriguing Solstice

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Dear Planet Waves Reader:

The Sun is now in Sagittarius. This is such an interesting time of year, but we tend to miss the spiritual qualities because our lives are so focused outwardly — shopping, preparing for family gatherings and going a bit nuts with year-end duties, depending on what business you’re in. In the Northern Hemisphere the days grow shorter at this time of year, drawing us inward: but everything seems to be focused on others and on the world of activity. Perhaps if we could follow the calling within, the problem of holiday depression that so many people face would be far less severe.

Barred Spiral Milky Way. This is a NASA artist’s conception of what our galaxy looks like from above. The Earth’s Sun would be about three-quarters of the way out, between two of the spiral arms.

As the Sun moves through Sagittarius, it’s also moving toward a solstice. This is the last four weeks of the days getting shorter (here in the north), something that begins at the summer solstice and which I am sure that few people think about at that time. So there is that sense of the last bit of time compression as the days grow to their shortest. This is compounded by the addition of standard time, which lops an hour of daylight off of the end of the day when the days are already short — I’ve never quite followed the logic of that.

Then there’s something else going on: the Earth and Sun are aligned such that we pass by two different galactic points during the next few weeks — the Great Attractor around Dec. 8, and the Galactic Core around Dec. 18. Both of these are dark matter points that I believe are associated with the time compression phenomenon this time of year. As the Sun passes the Great Attractor, there will be a New Moon on Dec. 5. This is conjunct Pholus, the second centaur planet (the first was Chiron). Remember Pholus? Small cause, big effect? We need to watch how the situation in Korea works out (please see related story below).

The Galactic Core, for its part, functions like a homing device. I believe it’s where much of our spiritual yearning is focused — toward the center of our island in space. Here on Earth, we are far from the core, between two of the spiral arms of our galaxy — not only are we remote from the center, we’re located on a back road. No wonder it gets lonely here.

Now, as for the holidays themselves: try to keep your plans flexible. The year ends with a bit of mystery and complexity, and information from astrology may help you keep things simpler than they might ordinarily work out. This is one of those examples when astrology functions as a source of vital information.

So far it’s been a year that few people will forget: the grand cross in the cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) shook up the world, ranging from the BP oil spill to the Tea Party. These same transits may have picked you up and spun you around a bit, though the peak of the grand cross has finally passed.

This beautiful cosmic cloud is a popular stop on telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius. Eighteenth century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged the bright nebula as M8. Modern day astronomers recognize the Lagoon Nebula as an active stellar nursery about 5,000 light-years distant, in the direction of the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Photo from APOD.

Yet we have one last astrological adventure before the relatively clear skies of mid-January: a combination of simultaneous factors between now and Jan. 4 that include the Mercury retrograde, a solstice and two eclipses. I’ll take them in order, offering some advisories that are tailored to meet the needs of busy human westerners.

I know there are many people who wish they could entirely sit out the holidays, and I would encourage you to do that if you want to, and if social conventions permit. Remember, too, that you can customize your socializing, such as by moving Christmas to the Eastern Orthodox version on Jan. 7, the long-forgotten holiday Epiphany

(when, according to the story, some really cool astrologers arrived at the birthplace of Jesus).

Okay, on to our story. Mercury is retrograde between Dec. 10 and Dec. 30. This covers the holiday shopping season, Christmas and (because Mercury changing directions actually shakes things up for several days) takes us right up to New Year’s Eve.

If you’re one who participates in the custom of buying gifts, I suggest you put more thought than money into the endeavor. Stick to simple items, for example, things made of wood, paper or cloth rather than electronic products. Books and crafts are two examples. I am collecting things like handcrafted soap and good old astrology books to share with friends. (Here is a potential gift-giving guide, called Everything Old is New Again.)

Eclipses, meanwhile, are falling at the end of the year and early summer. They drift through the seasons on a nine-year cycle. They have been occurring in Cancer and Capricorn and are now moving toward Gemini and Sagittarius. The current eclipses (Dec. 21 and Jan. 4) as usual promise to raise the intensity level of existence, and create a threshold into the next phase of our lives. But their proximity to the solstice points adds that much more energy to the mix. In December we have a lunar eclipse (the Sagittarius Full Moon) on the eve of the Capricorn solstice, one that you won’t need an astrology chart to notice. This is followed by a solar eclipse on Jan. 4 (the Capricorn New Moon), which is when you can think of 2011 as actually beginning.

All of this adds up to a few simple points. One is, do less rather than more. When the astrology gets like this, it’s possible to go into mental or emotional overload. Therefore, do your part to stay back from the edge. Go for fewer commitments, less travel, less shopping and overall reducing any tendency you may have to rely on obligation as a means of guidance. We all notice how many people start to act like frantic robots around the holidays; I admire the people who dare to try something new.

If you can get to a wavelength above all the buzz created by these inner planet movements (Sun, Moon and Mercury all qualify), there is another level that’s brilliantly creative. This appears as a kind of Star of Bethlehem in the form of the conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus in Pisces. This is an aspect associated with great meetings, technical breakthroughs and some of the most positive developments in any creative endeavor. It’s worth staying home for; Pisces is about the inner life, and this is a moment of visceral soul contact that is available to anyone.

Wishing you a brilliantly creative holiday season,

PS, I discuss the holiday season astrology in my latest audio podcast. You can listen to it here.

An international confrontation: Korea situation astrology

Dear Friend and Reader:

Two weeks ago, I cautioned in the subscriber edition of Planet Waves (“And What Are We Attracting?“) that we were heading for what appeared at the time to be an imminent international confrontation of some kind. “It looks like some hotly polarized, extremely exaggerated international situation that pops up seemingly out of nowhere,” I wrote in that edition. We now have a clue what I was seeing in the chart: the situation that emerged between the two Koreas on Tuesday, Nov. 23.

Chart for the beginning of the Korea situation on Tuesday. Notice the Aries Point rising, and Pluto in Capricorn on the Aries Point (via Capricorn) on the midheaven, at the very top of the chart. Also notice the Gemini Moon is opposite the alignment of Pallas, Mercury and Mars in Sagittarius.

Accounts as to what happened vary, but the result was that North Korea began shelling a military base on the South Korean island of Daeyeonpyeong, one of several islands collectively referred to as Yeonpyeong Island. North Korea stated that it had responded after the South had recklessly fired dozens of shells into North Korean territorial waters around Yonphyong Islet. Naturally, there are two sides to the story, though it seems unlikely that South Korea would start firing shells to the north ‘recklessly’. Anyway, the result is that we have one of the worst conditions between these two nations in decades.

MSNBC is reporting that the United States’ George Washington aircraft carrier battle group is on its way to the region. U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, a former admiral who once commanded that carrier group, is saying he believes we’re deploying it to the region as much to be in a position to retaliate against the North as we are to be preventing the South from over-reacting. He said the chances of the situation escalating are “pretty darned low” if we handle things carefully and use China as an ally. China is the one country with any real influence over North Korea. (Notably, during the Vietnam War, China was working against the United States by financing North Vietnam. It truly is interesting how things change.) Sestak, a member of the House Armed Services Committee (an influential House of Representatives committee), said he believes that U.S. military resources are severely depleted by our involvement in Iraq, and that we don’t have much left to handle a military situation on the Korean peninsula if push really comes to shove.

One of the reasons I suggest we take this seriously is the astrology. [Here is the chart at full size.] I mentioned that the grouping of Mars, Mercury, Pallas and Pholus are aligned with a fixed point called the Great Attractor, as well as with a slow-mover called Ixion. In addition, all of these points align with something called the Nuclear Axis, an arrangement in the chart for the first self-sustaining atomic reaction, which is a pretty good chart for predicting nuclear situations. In about a week, we’re going to have a New Moon conjunct Pholus right on the Great Attractor and the Nuclear Axis. Pholus has a way of letting the genie out of the bottle. And it points to effects that have causes going back several generations, and that are associated with drunkenness of one kind or another (drunk with power would qualify).

First let’s look at the ascendant — that would be the Aries Point rising — very early Aries. Now look at the midheaven — that too would be the Aries Point, via early Capricorn with Pluto right on top of the chart. This tells us we have a high-impact situation on our hands, something that could have real implications. Pluto on the midheaven is not friendly — that’s about governments obsessing over their military might and ability to control (what they think of as) ‘reality’.

Next let’s look at the position of the Moon. The Moon is in late Gemini, opposing the alignment in Sagittarius I was describing in the article. What is a bit troubling is that next week’s Sagittarius New Moon is conjunct Ixion, Pholus and the Great Attractor. Mercury and Mars have moved on; Pallas is lingering in late Sagittarius; but there is still a powerful conjunction gathered around the Great Attractor, and then along comes a conjunction of the Sun and Moon to set it off.

I’m not sure how knowing all this helps, though generally I feel that awareness is a good thing, so let’s keep paying attention.

Last Call on Light Bridge for One Price;
All Readers Invited to Cosmic Confidential

Dear Planet Waves Subscriber:

Light Bridge, the 2011 annual edition of Planet Waves, is in progress. The astrology for 2011 is exciting, and it’s the last year before the full-contact point of 2012. So this is the year of preparation and transition: of new transits that will shape the background of life and challenge us to be in full integrity about who we are.

Light Bridge is still available for one low price. Early next week I’ll switch the sales page to a pay-per-sign method; that will about double the price of all 12. For now, you can get all 12 for the price of two individual signs. Based on how I do this kind of detailed astrology, I consider the write-up for your rising sign to be as significant as the one for your Sun sign. I know this is supposed to be Sun sign astrology, but the houses play a huge role, so I suggest you take the extra step of finding your ascendant through a chart service (which is easy, and free, such as through Astro.com), and investigating your rising sign. That’s the sign that is rising in the east at the time of your birth, every bit as influential as your Sun.

You may also do this for family members or significant others whose astrology you’re investigating. This will be a mix of written and audio, with some overlap in the interpretations, though the audio piece and the written one will be their own entities. So there will be plenty of personal astrology in this annual.

Free Access to Cosmic Confidential This Weekend

I’ve removed the passwords to Cosmic Confidential, the 2010 annual edition, for the weekend. If you didn’t subscribe, you have a chance to look in on what we said about your sign(s) for 2010, and to see the many reader comments. Here is your link to the full edition, and here is your link to the 12 signs of astrology.

One reader just wrote in, “Over the last few years, I have been grappling with a variety of deep internal issues, and what do you know — they are all listed in your horoscope! It’s a real affirmation for the set of choices I have made recently during a time when even I sometimes start to wonder about these choices.”

And another wrote this weekend, “Thanks for giving us access to these. The Virgo report is uncannily accurate; it is my rising sign . . . when I took astrology classes, I remember feeling so overwhelmed by the tons of information for each part of the chart; I never did master the art of knowing how to put it all together. Your ability to do so is amazing to me.”

I think that every astrologer dreams of being able to provide interpretations that work for people without the necessity for an individual reading. While a long one-on-one conversation takes things to a new level, in 15 years of doing sessions with clients, while writing nearly 1,000 astrology columns and far more articles, I’ve learned how to give you something truly useful in my interpretations.

And you’re invited to take advantage of this.

Yours & truly,

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for December 2010

Aries Confidential

The past year has offered a glimpse of what is possible. You’ve also seen how much can change how fast, and how little you will miss the past when it does. Mostly, though, I trust that you’ve noticed that life treats you better when you offer yourself as a direct participant rather than as a spectator. Now, there are two basic postures through which you can participate. One is defensive. The other is progressive. You’ve had a few tastes of both. Defensive is basically a mode of reacting to or pushing back against your environment, after it has moved and affected your life some way. Progressive is you get an idea about who you are, then commence an experiment or adventure seeing what it’s like to explore that idea. This is a creative way to live, in that you’re consciously self-creating who you are, then asserting that on your environment like an artist paints on canvas. I admit that few astrologers would say that any Aries lacks assertiveness. But I’m not talking about being headstrong, pushy or ambitious. I’m talking about making subtle refinements that efficiently remove any reactive postures you may have, including being ruled by the fear that you will disrupt the apple cart, disappoint others or change your world in a way that you cannot change back. I suggest you make friends with all of these possibilities, and boldly create existence from the inside out.

Aries Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Taurus Confidential

You seem to be on a quest to be free within your relationships. Or rather, your relationships may be on a quest to have you be free within them. There is no question that you’re involved and deeply invested in the personal and professional situations of your life. Neither is there any question that you’ve been exploring the limits of both your personal tolerance with limitations and the potential for evolving into a new version of yourself. This has presented a struggle seemingly with as many disappointments and losses as there have been gains and moments of progress. Over the next few weeks, something unusual happens. This set of circumstances ignites your passion for freedom and independence simultaneously with your drive to connect with the people around you, potentially someone specific. There is an ‘everything, all at once’ property to the moment, and you may be in a position — wittingly or not — to make decisions that have the ability to unravel your life as you know it. That is potentially a good thing; as much as you fear too much change too fast, stagnation is not a healthy state of being. I suggest, however, that you do your best to make your moves consciously. Acting on idle curiosity can be dangerous. I suggest making decisions only when you know what you want. That means being aware of what you want and keeping it in mind as a reference point all the time.

Taurus Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Gemini Confidential

One thing does indeed lead to another, and that process will proceed in your relationships with the approximate enthusiasm of opening a shaken-up bottle of champagne. With that as our starting metaphor, I suggest you avoid making decisions when you’ve drunk any more than an Honest Tea — unless you’re in the mood for a wild ride. Though I’m not usually the writer who does the Dear Prudence column, I’m going to take that role this month. As regards any relationship or partnership, keep your long-term intentions clearly in mind, and make every decision based on those intentions. Make sure you remember that it’s you who’s running your life. Whatever may happen in your world, you have a wide diversity of possible responses, and I suggest that the best ones would include a lot of time for contemplation, and for consulting with those who have less involvement or investment than you do, be it emotional or financial. What you need is objectivity. Please, get some and have it ready when you need it; inserting strategic pauses in the action may be enough. The combination of holiday pressures and numerous factors of the current astrology (Mercury retrograde, solstice and eclipses, among others) are potentially dangerous when mixed into one vat, and you need to proceed slowly, with actual caution until early January. Then you’ll be able to make coherent decisions that work out best for you and the people you care about most.

Gemini Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Cancer Confidential

You may have a tendency to process information with your mind rather than your feelings, and right now you need both. The astrology of December calls for balance; it necessitates a dialog, starting with yourself. Here’s what I can tell you. First, no situation is as difficult or as complex as it seems. Challenging, perhaps, and yes — it takes faith to give yourself some distance and let things work out, particularly when you think the one thing you must do is exert control. There’s a relationship situation where that just won’t work — but here is the silver lining: you don’t want control, nor would it serve you, nor would it serve anyone else involved. This is a moment when the fates will intervene on your behalf, if you allow them to. How to do that is to stand out of their way, which means your own way. There is a phenomenon of something appearing one way, then morphing into something else, so allow that process to work so that you know where people, and circumstances, really stand before you decide how you feel about them. I suggest you make a yoga of keeping your fears not only in check, but rather burning them as a source of creativity. Certain events this month will teach you what you don’t want. Others will teach you what you want. Remember, the second of those is much more important.

Cancer Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Leo Confidential

Think strategically about your health, and about your work. Proceed with a plan, and allow that to be the central feature in your life. You appear to be under some extra physical and psychological stress; you can handle it, if you take care of yourself. This would be an amazing time to get into the groove of true self-care, if it’s something you’ve resisted in the past. Pluto is in Capricorn for the long haul, and is about to be joined by Mars. This is giving you the energy and incentive to push it, though Mercury retrograde (in the same neighborhood) is suggesting that you not do so, and in particular that you take care of your mind. Even if you’re in a tight spot financially, try not to worry about cash — a world of opportunity is likely to open up in the spring, particularly if you keep yourself in balance now. If you count that as your primary responsibility, you’ll notice your life flows better, opening up a sense of potential that is mostly psychological in nature. That’s the kind of potential that actually works. And in this, having a plan will help immeasurably, to give you the sense that what you’re doing is actually doable — and it is. I can sum up your whole plan in the words of Don Herold, quoted in my favorite homeopathic text (Prisma): “Work is the greatest thing in the world, so we should always save some of it for tomorrow.”

Leo Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Virgo Confidential

Art will not only save your life, it will give you life; it will give back to you more than you put in, with the benefits extending to everyone around you. Art begins when you don’t try to impress anyone with what you’re creating. It’s all about what you do and how you feel, so don’t try to impress yourself, either. I suggest you consider any and all of your excuses for why you don’t do art as remnants or direct results of childhood trauma: examples such as having too much work, not enough talent, it’s too frivolous or best of all, too childish. Proceed on the basis of sensation. Treat any excuse or resistance that comes up as specifically the thing you get to heal as a direct reward for embarking on creative experience — and experience is the key concept here. Taste some of that; lure yourself with how good it feels. You have enormous energy pent up in the creative-erotic angle of your chart, and it’s wanting to come out now, in force. I suggest that whatever you do, that you work with something kinesthetic: such as clay, paper maché or even finger paint. This will provide direct contact with what you’re doing and let you feel the shapes take form. This will keep the creative energy flowing from your mind to your body through to the thing created. Remember: no judging, evaluating or critiquing. Feel, and feel the child in you coming to life.

Virgo Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Libra Confidential

Let’s take a moment and review the recent Venus retrograde (spanning from early October through late November). I know the current astrology has morphed into what may seem like bolder adventures, and the rare retrograde of your planet, partly in your sign, may already feel like a thing of the past. Yet for you, it’s what distinguishes this year from many others in your life, and I suggest that the take-away from the past two months is a longterm project of understanding the concept of self-esteem. As I’ve suggested in longer articles, self-esteem is the spiritual issue of our day. It’s connected to mindfulness and the ability to respect yourself, to honor your authentic values, and to live like you’re a natural part of existence. Through early January as Venus makes its way across Scorpio, you get to internalize this material in a full way. You’ll have many opportunities to see the shadows in your mind as what they are, and to assert yourself against the negative conditioning of your upbringing. You’ll be able to witness the ways in which your values have been dictated by others, and distinguish these influences from the ones that you’re providing on your own terms. Nobody has or ever had the right to tell you how to feel about yourself: that is your privilege alone, and as you embrace a new depth of self-acceptance you will come into even closer harmony with the world around you.

Libra Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Scorpio Confidential

Your mind is a filter through which you perceive the rest of reality. The rest, as in the little that’s left without your mind. You know that expression, ‘Smile and the whole world smiles with you’? It also translates to, ‘Rage and the world rages with you’, and ‘Be alert and aware and the whole world is alert and aware with you’. Now, which of these is happening? You may be experiencing a strange mix. Because Mars is joining Pluto in Capricorn this month, you’re working through a maze of material from your distant past. Any frustrations you’re feeling connect with the embodied emotions of a powerful yet powerless child who could not successfully influence the environment around him/her. The thing to remember now is that you can influence your environment, and that you don’t need to rage, compete, argue or justify yourself. It may take some extra focus to notice the lines between old influences and new ones, and to see that you’re responding to both at the same time. If you’re feeling helpless or defensive, that’s a sign that you’re not recognizing the options that you have to make a difference in your own life. Every factor is guiding you to consider those options. You don’t need to make a lot of changes; one or two bold moves might be enough. The very point where you feel the most hamstrung or frustrated is where to look the most honestly, and in the words of my mentor, Joe Trusso, “Use what you know.”

The Scorpio Audio Report is now done. This reading includes more than an hour of astrology and 20 minutes of tarot custom created for those with Scorpio Sun, Moon or rising. Priced at $14.95, it makes a useful and economical gift. Use this link for instant access.

Sagittarius Confidential

Business and money are the primary focus of the next six weeks. If you’ve been waiting for the opportunity to perk up your lot in life, you’re in the zone, though timing is everything: December is for preparation, January is for action. Obviously you’re feeling the drive and the rumblings; and we all know that the last few weeks before the holidays are not usually the best time to invest a lot of energy because everyone seems to have something else on their mind. That may be true, but you’re likely to have a series of low-key interactions with people that feel more like conspiratorial plans than like Apple announcing the newest iThing. I suggest you directly focus on creating a financial strategy. Be specific about what you want to create and how you want to get there. And I suggest you put this high on your priority list as a longterm endeavor. Here is the spiritual piece: in doing so, you’re likely to come up against the programming of past generations that we can politely call poverty consciousness. You might encounter guilt that you want and intend to create abundance. You might encounter any number of emotions, ranging from the sense of ‘not deserving’ to noticing the struggles of others, to your belief that you cannot thrive in a ‘bad economy’. This is the karma that it’s time to burn through, once and for all; you’re done with it, and it’s done with you.

Capricorn Confidential

This ought to be an interesting month: just about everything that can happen in astrology happens in your sign. Nearby planets are aligning with distant ones, Mercury retrograde will be dancing around and (looking ahead to early January) a solar eclipse takes place, square your ruling planet Saturn. That all must mean something — it looks like action and activity, plenty of it unpredictable. You get a series of chances for significant wins and losses, which means the potential for actual progress. This happens at the time of year when most people want to kick back and take it easy, spending a little too much time drunk and overstuffed. Not you, please. Maintain your focus, and proceed with a plan. Keep an eye on both necessity and opportunity. Manage your holiday commitments carefully, and I strongly suggest minimizing travel plans: you will save time, money and precious mental energy. What I’m suggesting overall is that you leave sufficient bandwidth available to take advantage of what opportunities come your way and to solve puzzles that may arise, all so that you can be in maximum creative mode. The shadow side of this may be confusion about who you are, a measure of inner chaos and some anger; the solution here is to keep your perspective, and maintain whatever spiritual or growth practice has served you — such as yoga, therapy, morning pages, and skillful use of your appointment calendar. And please don’t fall for anyone claiming you owe them something. Guilt is a nonstarter. Toss it back.

Capricorn Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Aquarius Confidential

There’s a passage in A Course in Miracles that took me a little time to get used to, like about 20 years. That is: “You don’t ask too much from life, but rather far too little.” It’s time to start asking for more; time to recognize how much you have and how useful it is. You can now put together two seemingly different aspects of who you are into one unified person, actually dialing in solutions that come from you and your existing resources. The thing to remember is: you have what it takes, on many different levels; your current exploration is finding the point of alignment. This should be easy. If you keep your focus on who you are, you will discover what you have. And that discovery will reveal that you have far more than you think, in resources of any kind, in ideas, in community: turning this into productive energy is a matter of intention and alignment. There is an intuitive leap involved. It’s like the resources you’ve got available are right next to you and you’re reaching a little further than you need to. Your greatest success will come from putting two obvious things, concepts or people together that you might have guessed would work so effectively. The results of this alchemy take you one wide and wild step beyond what you know, beyond what is familiar and certainly beyond what you expected was possible at this time in your life.

Aquarius Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Pisces Confidential

If you’re in a phase of seeking, and finding, ever-greater clarity, then remember — everything is subject to being perceived through this lens. Be open to revising your methods, and let every development be an occasion to do so. Be open to revising your goals, but remember what the most enduring of them are, and keep your focus there. Be flexible enough that you can adapt to your environment and evolve your concept of what you want, and steadfast enough that you can persist in the face of the questions and possibilities that are humming around one authentic purpose. Look closely and you will see the silver lining to everything. Listen carefully and you’ll get clear direction about how to reach your next destination efficiently, though in a way you might not have been expecting. What the planets portend is a depth of awareness that you can apply to your worldly affairs right away, in actuality rather than in theory — remember that. This is a truly revolutionary time in your life, a fact that will become apparent after the dust settles on the wild spell of astrology that blows through late in the year. Learn to trust yourself as a daily yoga. Learn to recognize your contributions to the world from moment to moment. And remember to keep your vision close to the front of your mind. Remember what you’re creating, and remind yourself what this says about who you are becoming.

Pisces Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Scorpio Time: Erotic Enlightenment

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Dear Friend and Reader:

Scorpio time is when the veil between the worlds is thinnest. In many cultures, this time of year is host to Days of the Dead, where the living honor their ancestors, making food for them and lighting the way back home with candles. This is a great tradition, honoring our predecessors, the movement of the seasons and the seasons of life.

Absorbing the Moonlight, Paris, 2008. Photo by Danielle Voirin.

Yet Scorpio is also the sign that covers all themes erotic, on the emotional level and the physical. This year’s transit of the Sun through Scorpio is joined by several other planets. At the moment, Venus is retrograde in Scorpio. She is joined by the temple priestess Vesta, and the messenger planet, Mercury. And for a little while longer, Mars is in Scorpio, heating up our emotional desire nature. When Mars enters Sagittarius later this week, we’ll be reminded that we can take our desire nature for a ride across the sign associated with our most cosmic origins — the Galactic Center. This is a hint about the inherently spiritual nature of desire, which seems to be one of the more dependable factors that advances the cause of humanity.

Meanwhile, we have Venus retrograde in Scorpio. This is a profound transit in every sense of the word. She is about getting underneath our emotions and discovering the true essence of self. With this transit we have questions to which we’re seeking personally relevant answers: what is the nature of attachment? Does it improve or get in the way of our desire to seek pleasure? What is jealousy and why do we worship it?

Vesta in Scorpio is about honoring our devotion to the inner flame of passion as something one and the same as the fire of the soul. Vesta is the goddess of fire, and her virgin servants were revered in Roman times. Vesta’s presence in Scorpio says the time has come to devote ourselves to the inner erotic and creative flame. The ways you might do this include defining a space in your home (a Vesta property) devoted to what you might call ero-yoga, the daily practice of nourishing and cultivating healthy, flexible erotic energy.

Another key element in erotic enlightenment is gaining knowledge. We live in a time when the information of the ages is available, if we want it. You’re not going to find out that much on CNN, but many talented authors have opened the subject for us. Information and ideas are available if we want them: that is, if we want to challenge our old ideas and stretch into something new. Many have experienced the pleasure and freedom of doing that. The top two books I would recommend are one old and one new: Eros Denied (1964, which explains the problem eloquently) and Sex At Dawn (2010, which points us out of the maze and toward our true nature).

One last note — Mercury, now in Scorpio, is a reminder to speak the unspeakable: to take this opportunity to share, verbally or in writing, what you’ve been unable to say before. Try and you will find the words you want and need. Be brave — that’s what it takes.

As November develops, the Sun and Mercury shift into Sagittarius, joining Mars. Then Venus stations direct in Libra, where Saturn is grounding the energy of balance and integrity. So this concentrated Scorpio energy we are now experiencing fans out into a wider mysticism (Sagittarius, home of the Galactic Core) with an added emphasis on relationships (Libra). This is rare, beautiful, useful and most of all fun astrology. Get it while you can.

This month’s horoscopes reflect these planetary movements, and of course there is more every day at Planet Waves, where I offer a fast-moving free website and a first-rate premium service. And look for Light Bridge, my 2011 annual interpretations for all 12 signs. Look for that email Wednesday night. There will be a special note for readers who cannot, due to personal circumstances, take advantage of the early opt-in — please look for that note in Wednesday night’s letter!

Lovingly,

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope – November 2010

Your interests and those of someone close to you seem to be skewed in two different directions. It may feel as if the values that you once shared and that bonded you are now diverging, and growing more distant by the day. It would help if you acknowledge this rather than ignore it or hope it will change. What is rarely taken into account is that despite being in a relationship — whether partners, business collaborators or friends — people have different cycles of growth. You’re experiencing one of those cycles now, and it may be creating a diversity of effects where people seem unavailable. What matters now is focusing on what you want. You’re still caught up in the emotional residue of what was or might have been; the particular cycle you’re at is moving forward, cutting yourself free from past emotional entanglements. As you do this, and as you persist and focus on what you want to create, you will figure out that you’re in totally new territory, with a much wider horizon of possibilities than you had just a few weeks ago. Let this lead you far and wide; give yourself the chance to open up to a new kind of optimism, in particular, one that does not depend on the presence or acknowledgement of anyone else. Yes, you’re likely to have lingering feelings or regrets. Remember: we all must live with one another’s decisions.

Aries Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

As children, we’re given one all-or-nothing relationship option to which all roads supposedly lead, which is marriage. This turns out to be like signing a credit card application: there are many hidden concepts lurking beneath the surface, which eventually manifest. This would be less of an issue if marriage were not the one and only acceptable notion of two people getting together. And this notion is so prevalent, and so taken for granted, that nearly every other form of relationship models itself after it. You’re now in a time of questioning all of the assumptions that you make in your relationships, or that you’ve ever made. To question an assumption you first have to know what it is, so you can look at it, decide if it’s true, and create some alternatives. This falls under the general heading ‘becoming aware of that which was previously unconscious’. Once you start exploring this topic, you’re going to find all sorts of interesting things you overlooked, and when you address them (mostly with decisions) your relationships are going to be a lot happier. These include expectations placed on others and yourself, hidden agendas, conditions, ideas about the value of sex, shared property and a diversity of other topics. The idea is not to resolve them all, but rather to embark on a process of keeping all of your conditions on the surface, where you can see them.

Taurus Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

You may have figured out the relationship between sex and your health. When you get the sex you want, you feel good, and when you don’t you may feel sluggish, depressed or like your life lacks meaning. Many people might judge this as a form of addiction; I would say that it’s more like if you don’t eat, you get cranky. For the next couple of months, you can equate sex to food, and apply the same basic principles of choosing what is nourishing, keeping your life in balance and noticing what things in your diet are depleting. It would help if you have contacts available who share this idea. At the moment, you may be feeling like your erotic nature is overly concerned with the idea of power. It’s true that for the foreseeable future, you need to look carefully at every situation and make sure that the power relationship is both conscious and balanced. It will help enormously if you didn’t judge what you want based on the opinions of others who may have more vanilla tastes than you do. If you’re going to explore what is called power exchange in your erotic encounters, it’s wise to do this with full awareness, mutual agreements and limits that both people honor. Just remember, you were born to push the edge, and one of your greatest assets is your curiosity. Therefore I suggest you associate with the edgy and the curious.

Gemini Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

It is always interesting what comes out in the wash known as sex. We in the West — that includes North America, Europe and the UK — have had so much baggage packed around our erotic desires that it’s amazing we even recognize them when we feel them, and the truth is, many people do not. This is a potent theme being described by the planets through the rest of the year, and your sign (and Cancer rising) are experiencing some of the most interesting layers of the journey. Rather than predicting, I will speak in questions. The first is about how you respond to what you attract. Do you welcome what you attract, or do you meet it with doubt or resentment? There’s a matter of ownership involved: of taking full responsibility for what is in your field of awareness, to the degree where you can actually have the experiences that are available, or choose something else. Another question involves the deeper material that surfaces when you choose an experience, including the bonds of relationship that form and what they mean to you. Finally, there’s the matter of desire itself, and your ongoing quest to experience desire liberated from guilt, shame or regret. You’re learning to experience desire in a direct, authentic way, without hesitation or remorse. As the month progresses, this will take on the flavor of a full-strength spiritual healing mission. That’s exactly what it is.

Cancer Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Your notion of safety involves being grounded in your emotions. You could be standing in a hurricane and feel safe, if you’re emotionally centered; you could be inside a fully stocked fortress with a paramedic team nearby and feel insecure if your emotions are off-kilter. So this is the time to tend the center. Your emotional life now has a central organizing principle, and that is where to focus. One image is the hearth at the center of a home. Tending the hearth is the central activity of keeping the home warm, safe and lived-in. There seems to be some kind of 24-hour-a-day devotion involved; the more you commit yourself to that, the better you will feel. You’ve done your share of emotional questioning the past month or so, and there seems to be one particular matter that is a source of doubt; you’re likely to forget about that, and it’s likely to take care of itself. What you can focus on, from your centered and grounded state, is making direct progress on what you want. This is likely to come in the form of a highly focused strategy that includes a wide-reaching plan and deducing a series of direct steps to making it real. Keep your optimism vividly in mind. Aim your intentions. Remember the many lessons of past generations, and be thankful you don’t have to go through any of that again.

Leo Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

If you encounter any turbulence in your home environment, do your best to think logically. Virgo is the sign of doing precisely that, except for how nervous you can be. So this will require conscious choices, and these in turn, will summon you to apply the best of your skill and experience. What seems like a simple situation, agitation or ordinary household conflict, is really much deeper, and there is rich material for you to explore here. Earlier in the year, around August and September, you may have found yourself in a situation that called for you to delve into your family history. That episode gave you a chance to sort out your personal karma from your ancestral karma. Now, you get to bring the full presence of your mind and move directly into the eye of the storm. There’s a situation that you have inherited from at least two generations ago, and you’re now in a confident enough place to approach it with a fully open mind, and work it out directly. The question is the same: what belongs to you, now, and what is properly the domain of the past? And where do these two ideas merge so perfectly that there is no difference? Nearly everything we deem spiritual growth involves changing our ideas about the past, therefore getting ourselves in a position to have access to our power in the present moment. And that is precisely what you can do.

The Virgo Audio Birthday Report is available. In the format of all the birthday audios, this offers more than an hour of astrology for Virgo and Virgo rising, covering the cardinal T-square from a personal perspective. I’ve also included a 20-minute tarot reading using the Voyager Deck. For instant access, order here for Virgo and Virgo Rising. Only $14.95, this also makes a meaningful and economical gift.

There are those moments when it’s possible to forget who you were, and become the person you are now. Sometimes to get there it seems necessary to obsess over the past, or the past obsesses over you. It also may be necessary to be confronted over and over again with who and what you are not, and who and what does not work for you. Here in the world of duality, contrast can be a helpful tool. It’s also a tool that only gets us so far. What you’re feeling for is a subtle shift of feelings — or rather two of them. The first shift will be a bit like, “This is me, but it’s not quite me.” The second will feel like, “This is absolutely correct, no matter what happened in the past.” The nature of the change is emotional. The mental level will reflect your deeper sensation, but ultimately you are striving to feel right about your existence. Now, many would say this is a process that takes some time, but I would remind you of two things. One is you’ve been at it for a while. The second is that in actual fact, there comes a point of decision that is the actual place where the ‘issue’ is worked out, the choice is made, and the fact that this is your life becomes so obvious as to be undeniable for another minute. After that, the rest is landscaping.

The Libra audio is available. This reading includes more than an hour of astrology and 20 minutes of tarot custom created for those with Libra Sun, Moon or rising. This is yet another amazing birthday/ascendant audio that is getting rave reviews. Here is how to get instant access.

It may be odd for an astrologer to associate Scorpio and the concepts of virginity or celibacy — but in general what some call ‘sacred sexuality’ would not be a stretch for you. This is a term that’s used more often than it is understood, and part of your mission now is to give the concept personal meaning. Deep beneath all the ideas, illustrations and suggestions of books about tantra (a term that, in modern usage, is a byword for conscious, meaningful erotic exchange) there is a spirit of devotion. That can involve devotion to service, it can involve healing and most of all it involves the unfettered honoring of pleasure as a natural, wholesome experience. Devotion is like tending a flame, and it’s vital to recognize that the flame exists inside you before it can exist anywhere else. We all have our hang-ups, we have our doubts, we have those places that we’re afraid to go. I suggest that you choose to be undeterred by any of these things, and focus your energy and thoughts on burning your flame as hot as you need to in order to burn off your doubts, body shame and religious guilt. Experienced in this spirit, sex ceases to be a consumable item and takes on new meaning as something that honors something inherent about what a person is: a perfect expression of nature and the intelligence that we often mistake for divinity.

Look for the Scorpio Birthday Report this week.

This has been a year of large plans and brilliant ideas with success that has ranged from warm to cool. Now get ready for hot. Get ready for the force of determination that you’ve always counted on in yourself, but which lately seems to have been tempered by a more deeply introspective view of existence. I suggest, however, that you apply something other than raw energy to your goals or life situations. The charts strongly suggest a refined mental approach, akin to chess, or maybe football. They also suggest that you actually don’t need to pour on that much in the way of effort or drive. The key is to direct your energy in specific ways, looking for the levers or specific gestures that maximize the results. Without being overly cautious — something I doubt you would do, but who knows — I suggest you be mindful of unintended consequences. This could easily work in your favor, with your actions delivering a result that you were not planning on, but which could work out in an unusually creative way. Your actions may have more significant effects than you’re intending. And this warrants a word of caution or two: you must avoid actual danger, such as handling an acetylene torch or motor vehicle when drunk, or experimenting with just how mean someone you don’t trust can be. Focused curiosity is one thing; idle curiosity is quite another.

You are close to a point where you can make no more compromises about who you are. You’ve done a lot of this in the past, for diverse reasons including living up to your parents’ expectations of who you are, or those of a partner, or the impulse to be a good parent. The list of expectations and who has them would be a long one, but I’ll cut it short with the idea that your sole, soul commitment now is the authenticity of your existence. You have wiggle room, but it’s now about 1/10th of what you had a year ago. The fit is getting narrower every day, and as you hone yourself and direct your energy at this one purpose, two things are likely to happen. One is that you’ll be more willing to encounter the unsettling lack of familiarity that the task requires; and you’re going to focus your power. Part of what claiming your power brings up is guilt, so if you’re feeling some of that, take it as a sign that you’re cutting the barbed wire of the past rather than a sign that you’re wrong. You’re removing the fetters of control that were embedded to your existence when you were much younger. You’re gathering the strength to move past the self-doubts of the adults who surrounded you and who themselves dragged around the doubts of their own parents. At a certain point you’ll no longer have to decide to be confident in who you are; your confidence will decide for you.

Capricorn Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Leadership requires a focus on ethics, and sometimes (or rather, often) there is a sense of sacrifice involved. I suggest that in the ensuing weeks you question both of these issues. As Venus stations direct in Libra, the first theme calls on you to consider ethics in the context of one-to-one relationships rather than in the general sense. Every relationship is one-to-one, whether you’re relating to a partner or to a million people. The idea here is to consider the individual case, and to be confident of your dependable tendency to do what is right. As for sacrifice, this is a misunderstood and abused concept that is the source of much avoidable misery and suffering. The presumption that we must always sacrifice (meaning, for others) is the very reason why bankers who stole from us to get their million-dollar bonuses without our raising the meekest protest. Note that the moment you question the idea, the validity or the value of sacrifice you may feel guilty for doing so. The opposite or compliment of this, or the remedy (however you choose to look at it) is your own conscious willingness to devote yourself to a project, cause or person, with no reservations and no sense of sacrifice: only the direct affirmation of what you want and what you want to create. This is what I would describe as leadership, the core value of which is uncompromised devotion.

Aquarius Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

In all likelihood, there was a time in your life when the sex was better. You may be remembering that lately; the memories may be vivid and beautiful. (Indulge yourself.) There was a time when relationships were more liberated, or more experimental. Or there was a time when you actively wanted those qualities in your contacts with others. What changed? Well, let’s see, you’re older now. That might account for your desire to have clearer experiences, which is connected to a desire to make better choices. Being older typically equates to a more firm idea of who you are, and that can lead anyone to narrow their concept of what they want — potentially (but not always) leading to deeper and more fulfilling situations. Often people price themselves out of the market, demanding so much assurance that an authentic experiment or encounter with the unknown verges on impossible. In these days and years of your life, you’re in one of the most radical processes of self-reinvention that you’ve ever been through. You’ve reinvented yourself in the past, but never so consciously and with such focus as you’re doing today — and that requires an open mind, and being open to experience. It means being open to different kinds of agreements with people than our culture sanctions, including situations that are open-ended and not pointed at a distinct goal — except for one thing: self-awareness, which might even become mutual awareness.

Pisces Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

Planet Waves Horoscopes for iPod, iPad, and iPhone

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for June 2011

Check this audio announcement for information about Eric’s new e-book, Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span.

Check this audio announcement for information about Eric’s new e-book, Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span.

Check this audio announcement for information about Eric’s new e-book, Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span.

Mars conjunct Chiron in Pisces

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for March 2011

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for February 2011

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for January 2011

An international confrontation: Korea situation astrology

Last Call on Light Bridge for One Price; All Readers Invited to Cosmic Confidential

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for December 2010

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope – November 2010

Check this audio announcement for information about Eric’s
new e-book, Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span.

Check this audio announcement for information about Eric’s
new e-book, Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span.

Last Call on Light Bridge for One Price;
All Readers Invited to Cosmic Confidential