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Forever Young

Dear Friend and Reader:

If I could write one thing to Bob Dylan, it would be a thank you note. Bob turns 70 on May 24, so this seems like a perfect moment. Of course, it’s hard to imagine him being 70 years old, but I’m sure he’s saying the same thing.

Photo by Ken Regan. This photo and others by Ken will be shown at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in SoHo. The show opens May 20.

If I could thank Dylan for one thing, it would be for setting an example that it’s okay to be relevant. A rock critic once wrote that he saved the world from “terminal, irrelevant schlock,” taking up real subject matter in every song. He did so (most of the time, anyway) without conveying the feeling of what some call statement songs. Many of his older songs definitely were, though the poetic strength of his writing made that either less obvious or more exciting. In writing, it’s always better to show rather than to tell, and Bob has shown us American life in its many shades, often dark ones.

For a long time, I’ve wanted to teach a university class called Rock Music as Journalism, and I think of Dylan as being the innovator of this genre. This has some resemblance to how he perceived himself, and how he actually created those songs.

“He said he was never a spokesman for a generation,” said Rob Fraboni, who produced Dylan’s 1974 Planet Waves album. “He was just writing about what he felt was pertinent at the time.” Dylan, he said, would spend time in the New York Public Library keeping up with world events. As a writer, he paid attention to injustice, on many different scales. The basic facts in one of his most moving early songs, “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll,” come straight out of a news clipping, though with some poetic embellishment. Int ruth, the real events of that song were a lot worse than he described.

So here, we have an artist who is not afraid to get his hands dirty with ink from newspapers. He was never above politics, or detached from it. He got Robbie Robertson to do the same thing, and from that, we get songs like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” — which was written by a Canadian who did some research. “Whether he wants to be a spokesman for a generation or not,” Fraboni added, “he has definitely brought a lot of things into the forefront.”

Bob Dylan with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in Greenwood, Mississippi, 1963. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

“The other thing to consider historically is that music was about dancing before Bob Dylan. The parents of the generation born in the 1940s were into the dance bands. Then along comes Bob Dylan and he changes the whole framework. Suddenly these songs mean something. There is a message, whether you want to call it that or not.”

To me, that message is a chronicle of the half-century he’s been writing music, at least as told through the eyes of an American. Many times he has seemed to be sounding a warning. In 1962 he described “guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,” ominously describing the Vietnam War that would engulf the United States two years later. In 1983, he lamented that all his clothes were made for slave wages in places like Singapore, in the same song warning, “I can see a day coming when even your home garden is gonna be against the law.”

As the trade deficit grows and most American companies pay pennies for labor in Asia, he called one of the biggest issues of the generation ahead. And as Europe and the United States ban herbs, and the US tries to ban farmers’ markets (regulating small, local farms being the approximate equivalent of outlawing gardening), we had better listen. (If you’re wondering about the potential farmers’ market situation, Google “Food Safety Modernization Act.”)

Dylan also redefined the genre of folk music. There were obviously folk songs before Dylan; it’s just that very few people dared to write new ones, and certainly not on a regular basis. Folk music was a somewhat stodgy tradition — and he opened it up to new contributors and new ideas.

“In truth there are no modern singer-songwriters writing in any sort of American roots or folk idiom who don’t owe a debt to Dylan,” Rosanne Cash said in an email correspondence last week. “We can all trace our work — how it’s structured, where we draw inspiration, and the self-reference (which hopefully doesn’t tip over into self-absorption) back to Dylan. In the same way that there is no modern country music without the Carter Family, there are no modern singer-songwriters without Bob Dylan.”

Dylan playing in Minneapolis, 1986, with Tom Petty to the right side of the photo. Photo by Robbi Cohn, Dead Images.

He even influenced the Beatles, but he did more than turn them on to pot. He encouraged them to do something meaningful with their platform, and they did. Of the four, John Lennon took that message closest to heart.

For many, Dylan’s message was a bit too much. As David Bowie said, he “brought a few more people on and put the fear in a whole lot more.”

There was the episode when Dylan walked off the set of The Ed Sullivan Show when network censors would not let him play “Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues,” which mocks the communist threat that was taken so seriously at the time, and is now known to be about the paranoia he was pointing out. A couple of years later, he and his band were attacked — even physically — by his fans at a concert in Forest Hills because he came out with an electric guitar.

Lest you think he was ever controversial for its own sake, that is, if his body of work is not convincing enough, let’s look at his astrology. His birth data is rated as AA — the highest rating, which means birth record in hand. We can be confident of his Sagittarius ascendant: he was born with a broad and far-reaching vision. The Galactic Center (literally, the black hole at the core of our galaxy, which is located in late Sagittarius) is rising when he is born; people with a prominent GC can have a cosmic quality, and an influence that seems to lurk behind everything.

Even many people with no interest in astrology know that Dylan is a Gemini. He embodies the concept perfectly: the messenger-trickster, who is witty and articulate in a way that is distinct to that sign.

Just for emphasis, he has Mercury — the ruling planet of Gemini — gleaming right on the western horizon, where everyone can see it. When something is on the western horizon, it can work like a mirror; the chart’s native can see himself there, and he himself can also function like a mirror, closely identifying with the public and vice versa. In part owing to that Mercury, my friend astrologer Gary Caton describes Dylan as “Hermes personified.”

The extraordinary Taurus-Gemini cluster in Dylan’s natal chart. Mercury in Gemini is the highest planet, the green thing on the top right side. Below that, in order, are Venus and the Sun in Gemini; then, in order downward, Jupiter, Uranus, the Moon and Saturn in Taurus. Not mentioned in the article are Black Moon Lilith and Nessus, also in Taurus. These kinds of concentrations can bestow a person with unusual creative power. How they use it is another question, and there are no guarantees.

Dylan’s Mercury has another special distinction — it’s connected to these odd points called lunar nodes, which bind a person to public karma. And he also has Venus in Gemini, granting him a status known even to his fans as a triple Gemini. Basically, that means there are six, 12 or 24 of him; multiple planets in Gemini tend to multiply.

But that’s not the part of his chart that I find the most interesting. To me the really interesting part has always been that he also has four planets in Taurus. Gemini can have an airy quality and, by itself, can want for substance. This is where Taurus comes in. He is working from a foundation of solid values, and this is what he expresses in his music. Let’s consider how this works in his chart.

Speaking in very broad terms, there are basically two kinds of planets: the kind that move fast, and the kind that move slow. Fast movers include Mercury, Venus and the Sun, which he has grouped in Gemini. These are usually about style and personality.

Then there are the ones that move slowly. These tell the story of a generation and of society itself. Three of the slow-movers have collected for a rare conjunction in Taurus. This grouping will be present, in one form or another, in the chart of everyone born between 1939 and 1941. How the energy of a planetary alignment expresses itself varies from day to day, and person to person — and is highly dependent on the time of the chart. In Dylan’s case, that Mercury is floating like that on the horizon for a matter of minutes before it sets, changing the astrology dramatically. This is one of those clear cases where had he been born 15 minutes later, he would not be the same person.

Hobby historians: does that 1939 to 1941 date range ring a bell? The world was on the brink of many changes — especially World War II — that were propelled by the same astrology under which Dylan was born. The concentration we’ve been living through this year is similar to that (though the slow movers are different), and we are at an equally wrenching, dangerous, and potentially potent time of history.

Taurus is often mistaken for a reserved, stable earth sign. It’s earthy like a volcano, or the place where two tectonic plates meet. There can be constant tension, even if it’s deep under the ground. People with strong Taurus in their charts have a lovely presentation, but they are on fire inside. Their need to constantly reinvent themselves is belied by that smooth exterior. But Dylan has the advantage of all that Gemini. He can reinvent himself externally, as an ongoing experiment.

Dylan playing in High Gate, Vermont, 1995. Photo by Robbi Cohn, Dead Images.

His strong Gemini gives him a stomach for something that’s abhorrent to most Taureans — inconsistency. On his 1976 album Desire, there is his famous tribute to Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter, who was falsely accused of a 1966 triple murder in New Jersey. Had Dylan not put that song on the album, then done a benefit concert for him at Madison Square Garden, Carter might still be in jail. He was freed from prison in 1985 after his two convictions were thrown out.

On the same album, Dylan has a tribute to Joey Gallo, a New York mobster suspected of involvement in the 1971 murder of Joe Colombo, a major New York godfather. “Joey” manages to be a combination of a dirge, an obituary and a protest song. The tribute to Gallo is every bit as sympathetic as the one to Carter. Is Dylan telling us he can see both sides of the story? Or that everyone deserves fair treatment? Is he admitting that humanity is made of sinners and saints? If you think about it, it’s a curious mix of themes, though most people don’t notice because the songs are both so compelling.

From the “two sides of the coin” files, in one biography I read the story of both the Gallo gang and members of the NYPD organized crime unit being invited to watch the the final mix of the song “Joey.” Both cars pulled up outside the recording studio at the same time and seeing the other, both left. This was attributed to Dylan’s wry sense of humor.

You need a little of that if you want to be relevant. From one journalist to another, I would like to thank Bob Dylan for giving many people permission to say something that means something, and to take an unpopular side of the issue when that’s the right thing to do. Who would have thought, at the time Dylan emerged, that the world would become one giant advertisement, selling mostly packaging, usually paid for on a credit card.

Thanks to Bob, strewn along the foggy ruins of time, we will find not only relics of what happened before us, but seeds of how to look at the world and see it clearly.

Yours & truly,

Readers may discuss this article, and ask questions about it, at this link on the Planet Waves blog. Special thanks to Ken Regan and Robbi Cohn for their generous permission to use photos of Bob Dylan.

Moments in Time: A Few Transits in Dylan’s Chart

Bob Dylan left his home in Hibbing, Minnesota, in 1960 at age 19. We know the road: Highway 61. We know he headed for Chicago, where he failed an audition for a folk festival, and Madison, WI, where he first saw Pete Seeger perform. We even know the day: Dec. 21, 1960.

What was going on in his charts that day? Let’s use a chart cast at his time of birth on the day that he left home.

Astrology can plot events as well as birth charts. This is the chart for the day that Bob Dylan left home at age 19, set for his time of birth (called a diurnal chart). There are many striking things about this chart. The first is that Uranus is rising, suggesting a radical change, revelation or development of some kind. Then we see Chiron on the 7th house, which among other things represents the ability to speak to many people in a language they understand. And the Sun is at solstice, square the Aries Point, showing his connection to the public and attunement to world events.

Here is his natal chart, which will open in a separate window, for reference. The chart to the left is the chart for the day he went on the road, inspired (as he has told us) by Jack Kerouac’s novel by the same name.

To cast this chart, I’ve used a technique I haven’t mentioned here before, called a diurnal chart. That’s the chart for any given day, set for the place the native is, and set for the time of birth. It’s a way to look at the quality of any particular day, using the consistent reference point of the birth time.

The first thing you might notice is that he left on the very day of the winter solstice. The Sun entered Capricorn that afternoon. It may have been in the last moments of Sagittarius, which has that flavor of a long adventure of some kind. You can see the Sun represented as the yellow circle, on the lower right side of the chart; the double zeros tell you that the Sun is at solstice, in the first degree of the new sign.

We have an Aries Point chart — that is, a chart with something prominent in the first degree of one of the cardinal signs. As you may recall from many prior articles, that’s the point that reminds us of the connection between the personal and the political — a principle, invented in the Sixties, that Dylan would come to embody and indeed innovate. (I happened to post the Planet Waves website on the winter solstice in 1998, and we’ve embodied the personal is political as an astrological concept.)

The really fun thing about this chart is the ascendant. Even if you can’t read a chart, take a look — it’s the dark, horizontal line to the left side. The degree of the ascendant in a diurnal chart changes at the rate of one degree per day. When a planet passes the ascendant (which every planet does annually), the person can embody that energy, and on this day, the planet Uranus is rising. Fittingly, this day we see him embodying the Uranian principle: sudden change, reinvention, liberation, boldness, revolution. In terms of how a human personality might experience this, it would be a restless sense of urgency and the need to bust free.

Bob Dylan’s birth chart, rated as AA by Astrodatabank (birth record on file). Dylan is famously a Gemini (with three planets in Gemini, the Sun, Mercury and Venus). But this alone would not get him quite as far, if he didn’t have a fuel source coming from Taurus. Gemini grants expressive gifts, but then it needs something to express, often drawn from another area of the chart. The planets and points shown in Taurus, from top to bottom, are: Jupiter Uranus, Moon, Saturn, Black Moon Lilith, and Nessus. He is Sagittarius rising. On the day he left home, Mercury in Sagittarius had crossed his ascendant.

To the other side of the diurnal chart, we see the sky loaded with Aquarius. Counting Chiron and some of the minor planets I cast into every chart, there are seven points in Aquarius, a sign connected to ideas, groups, social movements, intellectual movements, inventions and equanimity. These points include the Moon — the Aquarius Moon, which is intellectually restless and may be the most socially conscious Moon placement.

Now, these events stand alone in the diurnal chart for the day he left. Let’s consider a few transits — that is, contact between real-time planets (in the diurnal) and the ones that are standing still in his natal chart.

Here is a fun one: In the prior article, we described how prominent Mercury is in Dylan’s chart — it shows up on his descendent, or western horizon. It was also prominent as a transit on the day he left: Mercury in Sagittarius was crossing his ascendant the day he left, as if it came to pick him up. This is another image in Dylan’s life of embodying or fully taking on the energy of Mercury-Hermes.

One last: with a character like Dylan, Chiron is going to be instructive. Chiron is in late Aquarius in the chart for his heading on the road. Chiron in Aquarius is the essence of the Beat Generation of writers, and the related youth movement. I think the Beat Generation kicks off when Allen Ginsberg organizes a series of readings in a garage-gallery in autumn 1955, in San Francisco, the very month that Chiron entered Aquarius for that cycle. This included reading part of his poem Howl, which would soon be considered one of the great works of American poetry.

Fast-forward five years and Bob Dylan is leaving home at the end of this transit — just as Chiron makes a series of squares to all those late Taurus planets in his natal chart. He was really, really feeling that quest for freedom. He was being provoked by his astrology, or you could say, the time was right. The last aspect Chiron makes, and the one he’s under at the time, is a square to his natal Jupiter in Taurus. Chiron square Jupiter is about a quest of some kind, a social crusade or fighting for the underdog. Indeed.

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Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 20, 2011, #860 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — With Mars (the main Aries planet) making a long trip through Taurus, you may be feeling especially lusty, indeed, driven to passion. The question is, what are you going to do with it all? Do you have the opportunity to express even half of what you’ve got going on inside? I suggest you do two things. One is, do your best to create some opportunities to share that energy, with others or by indulging yourself. The second is, while you’re doing that, notice what gets in the way. Is it your circumstances? Are there people you feel you would offend or betray? Is it your own psychology? What is the relationship between the two? The question to ask yourself is, are you in a situation where you can really be yourself, and if not, what adjustments can you make?

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) — As planets collect in your sign, previously hidden material is coming to light. That includes everything from fears to unacknowledged desires; from conflict to passion; from a sense of potential to a sense of loss. The effect is like awareness gradually rising, revealing a diversity of emotions that you may not feel, in total, amount to a good thing. I don’t think you’ll have that perception for long. With feelings, it’s necessary to embrace the full spectrum, in order to be able to draw the power from the battery and put it to creative use. There’s a message behind all the seemingly diverse information you’re getting; that involves what it means to be a whole person rather than living with the sensation that you’re made of many fragments. There are aspects of your psyche that will benefit from hearing one another’s point of view, and that is what you will access as the Sun enters Gemini this weekend.

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) — It seems like every day that goes by, you know a little less. This is the result of being a consciously curious person who is aware of the functioning of your own mind. Curiosity is your friend right now; this is a sensation of being aware of not knowing, but enjoying the feeling as you sleuth out the elements of a situation. The situation in question is you, and it’s almost always healthy to turn your curiosity on yourself. I assure you the world would be a lot better place if we all invested more energy doing this, and fortunately you’re not shy about it. The key now is to go deeper than you usually do. What tends to repel you from that depth is that the deeper you go into yourself, the more you encounter density and stark tension rather than the fleet-footed mental process that you like so much. But just like the most valuable minerals are kept underground, so too are the most vital aspects of who you are.

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) — As the Sun enters the sign Gemini, I want to share an observation that I’ve cultivated over many moons as an astrologer: your sign embodies the notion of the twins just as much as the actual sign of the twins, or any of the other supposedly dualistic signs. Yet for you this happens in a way that is hidden, and that also tells us something about most of the human race. We see division in the world without necessarily understanding that it has a counterpart within us. In the weeks ahead, you can go a long way toward healing the inner splits that often cause you so much struggle. Finding inner accord is not so much about ‘middle ground’ as it is about common ground. Your different pursuits in life are not as different as you think. As time goes on, you’re likely to see that they all support one another. You can make relationship choices that are designed to facilitate your inner harmony.

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) — This is an important time to articulate your goals to yourself. You have them; you merely need to put them into some tangible form, such as on a white board or a computer file (both of which have writing in common). This is also a time to purge old goals from your repertoire, the ones you know you no longer wish to pursue, the ones you have decided are not rewarding. When you do that, you’ll notice a bunch of things that you were doing in support of those old objectives that you can now call off, and collect your energy around what you actually want. I suggest you do this sooner rather than later, since the opportunity to make some excellent progress is on its way. You will be able to make more of it if you’re better prepared, which translates to knowing what you want and having some energy available.

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) — Your solar chart is set up for a dual career kind of life (so is everyone who has Virgo rising or Gemini on the 10th house cusp). That is to say, there are two distinct sides to your true career, or you have two distinct careers, each of which needs love and attention. What is interesting about the present moment is the way you seem to be integrating them. If you’re not actively doing this, then you have an invitation that will be opening up over the next few weeks. The solution set may be embarking on a project of some kind that utilizes all of your skills, talents and desires in a new way. When you consider them now, these different aspects of who you are may seem totally unrelated. But they have you in common — and there is something you can do or create that draws on all of who you are at once. It may be thrust on you suddenly; know what you want, and be ready to leap.

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) — An eclipse is approaching in the angle of your chart that describes your relationship to what some call the ‘higher self’. That same angle of your chart also brings in the themes of ethics, your sense of justice and — oddly enough — your mother’s hidden psychological legacy. Was she of two minds about something important? Did she try to split her character, being decent folk in one part of her life, and less than friendly in another? Or did she live two lives in some other way? The split has carried itself into your life, though it may not be obvious how. If you find yourself in some kind of ethical or spiritual crisis during the next few weeks, you might want to look to her life as a map, or as a source of information. If you happen to have an aunt, she would be the place to go for some useful information.

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) — Planets are lining up in your opposite sign Taurus, including ever-important Venus and Mars. This leads me to some curiosity about the nature of a relationship in your life. To what extent is it really happening, and to what extent is it the product of your imagination? The answer is probably a mix of both, though this is a good time for a reality check. I suggest you make a timeline of the history of the relationship. With that, I suggest you make a map of all the people you’re attracted to, and those who you suspect are attracted to you. Not a list, a map. Who are they? How do they relate to one another? Look for patterns — and see if you notice what they say about you. For example, what aspects of yourself do each of these people represent? This should be pretty interesting.

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 know I’ve told the story of our old web designer Jordan, who created the astrological sign Sagittaurus. True, it was a typo (plastered all over the 2003 annual edition and later removed) but it was a good one — and over the next couple of weeks, it comes true. Your ruling planet Jupiter arrives in Taurus for more than a year, uninterrupted. This is about your wellbeing, in particular, it’s an invitation to take better care of yourself and invest more of your resources into pleasure. There’s a clue that your ideas are worth more than your labor. I will admit, this is a challenging notion for most people, who are accustomed to punching a clock. So if you’ve ever had a scheme or concept whereby you make a living from your creative work product rather than your time or your effort, now is the time to get it going. Many other factors are stacked in your favor, but you have to make the moves.

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 some diversity. If you have some other way you express yourself, that’s the thing to do now. The other side of your brain needs attention. If you usually use words, switch to pictures. If you use pictures, maybe switch to music or movement. If you speak another language, find someone else who does. In fact, if you have some particular specialized jargon you love (fashion, photography, tropical fish, the Grateful Dead), look up your best friend who also speaks that language. You will find these things entertaining as well as liberating. Part of what you’ll get is balance, and part of what you’ll experience is the sensation of not being alone, which will come as a relief. It’s not that you are alone, but if your astrology lately has you feeling like the only pea in a pod, there will at least be two.

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) — Get ready to start making improvements to your living space, or finding a new, better, brighter one. Clear out old stuff; clean your windows; drill into corners and closets and bring the physical remnants of the past to light, so you can move through it. This is about Jupiter moving into Taurus, your solar 4th house — your physical environment, which translates to your emotional environment. While that doesn’t happen till the first week of June, I suggest you start early, while Jupiter is in a fire sign, and your house of ideas. Speaking of which: if you have been a little late in the game of initiating your ideas, go for it. Even making a small move now could lead to something significant materializing. The first step is the most meaningful one and in truth you are never too late.

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 suggest you take a low-key approach to improving your financial situation, mainly by using trusted methods of making income rather than new ones. Think of this as a time when you can collect on old or established investments or ventures rather than having to invent some. That will happen soon enough, as you convey your older methods into newer ones, which you may be considering in their formative stages. You have an excellent chart setup for turning concepts into income, but that takes three things: clear ideas, the ability to stick to them, and trust. Of the three, trust is the most important element, which is why I am suggesting you get the ball rolling on what you already have faith in, rather than what will likely challenge your sense of your own credibility. Once you taste success, you will recognize the feeling that it’s associated with.

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

The Most Wanted Man in the World

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Dear Planet Waves Reader:

When I was teaching English 101 at SUNY New Paltz, I assigned my classes a book called Reading the News. In its clear-headed approach to understanding how journalism works, its first chapter was titled, “Who Makes the News.” That’s a statement, not a question: who makes the news — before what, where, when and why. We want to know about people. We want to know what they do, and we crave a window into their psyches, perhaps in search of ourselves.

Julian Assange, the most wanted man in the world. He evokes the archetype of the hero-outlaw, or a character from a graphic novel — but he’s a real person, doing real work. Photo: Agence France-Presse.

Currently, that ‘who’ would be a man named Julian Assange. In 2007, the native of Australia created an organization called WikiLeaks, an online clearinghouse for people who want to reveal injustice. Whistleblowers can upload classified or confidential documents into the WikiLeaks system from anywhere. WikiLeaks authenticates the documents, then working with news organizations, selectively makes them public. You may recall reading about WikiLeaks in this space a few months ago, when the organization published the Afghan War Diary, a collection of internal memos and field reports from the U.S. military’s database [see Clearing the Smog of War].

At the time, I described this as a manifestation of Chiron conjunct Neptune in Aquarius — a moment of clarity and revelation for a country that has been huffing the shoe polish of denial for many decades, particularly when it comes to the conduct of the military. That conjunction, which gradually started gathering steam in 2005, is now working at full strength, and it seems to be getting results.

Assange is back in the news, along with dozens of stories the media has been ignoring forever and seven Sundays. WikiLeaks this week made public 250,000 pages of memos from the United States diplomatic community. The latest revelation is that the United States is propping up a government in Afghanistan where most of the money goes to graft. To date, we have spent $371 billion in Afghanistan only to learn that Hamid Karzai, the president, is personally facilitating the drug trade. “Mr. Karzai pardoned five border police officers caught with 124 kilograms (about 273 pounds) of heroin and intervened in a drug case involving the son of a wealthy supporter,” one cable revealed, according to Friday’s New York Times. U.S. diplomats said they believe that every cabinet minister except the minister of agriculture is involved in graft and bribery. The war has now been going on for nine years and two months. We’re reading about this today?

Earlier in the week we learned from the leaked cables that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordered her diplomatic corps to serve as a spy ring on the United Nations (including the secretary general) and foreign diplomats, telling them to collect everything from credit card numbers to computer passwords to DNA samples from saliva left on teacups.

“She [Clinton] should resign, if it can be shown that she was responsible for ordering U.S. diplomatic figures to engage in espionage in the United Nations, in violation of the international covenants to which the U.S. has signed up,” Assange said to Time magazine this week.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reads up on Iraq. As a senator, she gave an impassioned speech supporting the invasion.

The cables also reveal that the Obama administration worked to protect Cheney-Bush administration officials from their conduct interrogating detained terrorist suspects. One cable details how “the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution,” AlterNet reported Thursday. And on his program Thursday night, Dylan Ratigan discussed cables involving Saudi Arabia that reveal how the country both funds terrorism based in Iran, and was or is trying to manipulate the United States government to bomb Iran at the same time.

How does a computer hacker get himself into the position of being able to call for the secretary of state to resign — and all the major media are writing about it? How is he getting his way with those who so recently believed they had total power, secrecy and impunity? Well, with courage, conscience and talent. And timing; all year I’ve been writing about the high-impact astrology (such as the Aries Point alignment of Saturn, Uranus and Pluto) that looked, long in advance, like it would rearrange world politics. Plus we are currently under a potent alignment in Sagittarius (the sign of international relationships) focused specifically on that theme [see And What Are We Attracting?]. This alignment peaks Sunday with the Sagittarius New Moon [related article below].

It’s a plain fact that the United States has gotten away with murder for decades, manipulating governments around the world, staging coups, starting wars and lying about all of it. Now one man comes along and opens up a floodgate of evidence of what has happened, and what is happening, and he cannot be ignored. So far as I know, Assange is the first person in two generations to openly take an actual stand against the United States in actions rather than words. Nothing against Code Pink protesting the war outside George W. Bush’s ranch, but Assange is personally rearranging the chess board with nonviolent direct action.

Who makes the news. Because we have a name and a face, the mainstream media propaganda machine has to actually report on many of the international issues it loves to pretend does not exist. Anything Assange does is news — and then they mention that he happens to have proof of conspiracies and war crimes. And the more public officials such as Clinton point to Assange as the problem, the more it begs the question what his documents say.

Top-Secret Chart Reveals a Real-Life Revolutionary

Assange till now had been concealing his birthdate, and thus any information about his chart. In my last article, I used the data for WikiLeaks itself, which is available through the website’s registration information. We now have Assange’s personal data because INTERPOL posted his birthday earlier this week, listing him as one of its most wanted international criminals.

Julian Assange has until now concealed his birthdate. This chart is based on the data published Monday night by INTERPOL. The blue planet on the left — shaped like an H — is Uranus, which is square the Sun — the yellow circle planet at the very top of the chart. Two features in this chart that I haven’t mentioned in the article are a complex square between Venus and Ceres (in Gemini) and Pluto in Virgo. Another interesting feature is that he has an exact conjunction between Mercury and the asteroid Psyche in the sign Cancer. This suggests that while he obviously has a powerful intellect, he does as much feeling with his mind as he does thinking; and that his thought process is guided by what may to him feel like a flaw or sense of weakness. That sensation draws in the soul quality of Psyche.

Is he being hunted for espionage, cyber-terrorism or revealing state secrets? No, they say he’s wanted for rape, in Sweden, and European authorities have launched a sweeping manhunt across the continent and into the UK to find him. In case you’re wondering whether he actually committed sex crimes, when was the last time you heard of an international dragnet for an alleged rapist? Notably, Sweden’s laws don’t require physical evidence of rape, only testimony. The case actually seems to involve whether condoms were used during consensual sex with two different women he met at a political conference. Note, he has not been charged with any crime, and a new warrant had to be issued Thursday because the old one was defective.

Since Assange had succeeded at keeping even his birthdate secret, this is something of an astrological coup, apparently first published Monday night to the astrological community by Lynn Hayes. Our chart for Assange is set for noon, because we don’t know the birth time. However, it’s a noon chart that goes straight to the point.

The first thing that catapults out of this chart is Sun square Uranus. Uranus disrupts, transforms, up-ends and blazes forward. This combination (through the influence of Uranus) brings in the revolutionary, rebellious and moreover inventive principle, expressed at full strength by the Sun. This aspect is in the DNA of Uranus — the Sun was square Uranus on the day that the planet was discovered. Many inventors and scientists have this or a similar aspect, and it contains Assange’s gift for technology. When you think of the Sun square Uranus, remember Nathan Hale: “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” Sun-Uranus is the full embodiment of the forward-thinking Uranian principle, which is associated with Prometheus; that’s the guy who ‘stole the fire of the gods’ — a fitting image of what Assange is doing.

These are the planets and points conjunct, square or opposite Assange’s Sun in Cancer. Isis is closely conjunct Uranus; this is a gift for assembling many small parts. Minerva is opposite Chiron/Eris, which brings in the theme of politics and serves like a guardian angel. Persephone opposite the Sun is a nice image of his affinity for the underworld, and Borasisi says, ‘Something is true if we believe it’s true’. It’s how belief activates perception. Sauer, an asteroid, is named for a river in central Europe; I’ve never used it in a chart, but it’s exactly conjunct his Sun.

(Others with this aspect include Joseph Campbell, Bono, Galileo, Bill Gates, Marconi, and those visionary birds of a feather, Barbara and George Bush.)

Casting his chart for noon, Uranus is exactly rising, as if to emphasize the point, giving the aspect emphasis and an extra means of expression. Notably, this square is hanging out at about 10 degrees of the cardinal signs — close enough to the Aries Point to count, and currently aspected by the approach of transiting Pluto. (Pluto is opposing Assange’s Sun, and square his Uranus.) And it’s in line with the Uranus-Pluto square of 2012, an aspect that will last for years and is gradually turning the revolutionary power of Uranus and the evolutionary mojo of Pluto loose on the world. This will come with Assange’s Uranian opposition — which represents attaining a new intellectual peak. Let’s say he’s just getting warmed up.

So, his chart is right in line with whatever 2012 is about — and make no mistake, what he’s doing is part of the story. When we think of the kinds of social progress we might associate with 2012, and the ‘paradigm shift’ and ‘people waking up’, how exactly might that look? Part of what is keeping the world situation so intractable, and so resistant to change, is that so few people know the deeper truth about many of the things that affect them, or even have access to it.

Many who do insist on denial as a means of persisting in their ways. This is an opening. It’s like the press is playing catch-up on what we missed during decades of fixation on Madonna, Michael Jackson and Paris Hilton. When the truth is revealed, there’s a release of energy — and the effect is unpredictable. But when we wonder just how it is that one would begin to dismantle the out-of-control military and espionage machine referred to in cables as USG, it could easily begin with an event like this, that pierces the deception that it is 100% necessary to maintain a condition of nonstop war.

Eruption of Self-Awareness: Chiron and Eris

In a similar vein, we see an exact conjunction of Chiron and Eris, two relatively new planets. Chiron (the maverick, healer, bringer of awareness) was discovered in 1977 and Eris (associated with identity crisis, disruptions and the castaway feminine aspect of both men and women) was anointed in 2006 (revamping the system of planetary categorization in the process — including the ‘demotion’ of Pluto). Chiron and Eris were conjunct through the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the conjunction is exact to the degree in Assange’s chart. In past articles I’ve associated this aspect with the revolutionary nature of the ‘second wave’ feminist movement that was thriving at the time.

Seventies-styled feminism may look kitsch today, and in many ways it sent a mixed signal. But it also brought a breakthrough in awareness and social progress, messy and incomplete though it was.

Chiron and Eris together in Aries (the sign of self and initiative) sparks an evolutionary impulse for self-actualization. It is about healing the fragmented sense of self that afflicts so many. There were many innovative therapy movements thriving at the time, which are all but forgotten today — gestalt, transactional analysis, primal, EST and others. The ’70s were said to be the ‘me generation’, and though this had many selfish and destructive results, there was overall a breakthrough in self-awareness and consciousness. The anti-Vietnam movement was thriving and Nixon was about to be busted for Watergate. Be Here Now was published, along with Rules for Radicals and The Anarchist Cookbook.

For those curious about the degree symbol of the conjunction, the degree is 14 Aries, and the image is, “A serpent coiling near a man and a woman.” Dane Rudhyar explains: “Identification in bipolar relationship with the impersonal rhythm of natural energy,” or in a short phrase, “ritualization of relationship.” Assange likens what he does to playing chess — a ritualized game with very few rules.

In his chart, the Sun, Chiron, Uranus and Eris are all in aspect — they are all working together, though the tension is rather incredible. It’s nothing less than you would expect in the chart of someone who would dare to take on such a massive issue, and succeed at getting noticed.

Saturn Opposite Neptune: The Shapeshifter

Assange also has Saturn opposite Neptune. Saturn contains and solidifies; Neptune dissolves. This is an illustration of tension, but it’s subtle, and it’s a picture of his quality of invisibility and ubiquitous presence. This aspect is one of his power sources as a hacker and his best camouflage as kind of hero-outlaw.

Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat. He has Saturn opposite Neptune in his natal chart, and is a kind of shapeshifter.

Assange started his career as a prodigy teenage hacker. He was arrested, but the prosecutor in the case said, “There is just no evidence that there was anything other than sort of intelligent inquisitiveness and the pleasure of being able to — what’s the expression — surf through these various computers.” The charges were dropped. His hacker name was ‘Mendax’, derived from a phrase of Horace: splendide mendax, or ‘nobly untruthful’ — a fine description of Saturn-Neptune in one of its more evolved manifestations.

Let’s consider how this works. Saturn and Neptune mirror one another in his chart. Looked at one way, Assange plays the role of Neptune the dissolver, and the power structure plays the role of Saturn, whose barriers are being melted away. Or as Tracy Delaney suggested while we were brainstorming this aspect Thursday, Saturn (in Gemini) is like a cold wind blowing on the cloud of Neptune, freezing and crystallizing the pattern of deception, so we can see what it is.

Saturn-Neptune is an illustration of his shape-shifting power — Sasha Baron Cohen, the actor who created the Borat character and Ali G, has this one as well. His mind has penetrating power: he’s a mindf*cker, and we love him for it. Just as Cohen’s characters penetrate the minds of the people he’s pranking, Assange soaks through the previously impermeable walls of power. Both work with a combination of discipline and illusion. Both, in Tracy’s words, “have a kind of congenital inability to be intimidated. No point throwing rocks at a cloud.”

Notably, Assange has a centaur planet conjunct Saturn — it’s called Amycus. In some earlier research, Tracy and I deduced that this planet is prominent in people who have a knack for getting the word out — including the Yes Men.

Logos and Atlantis: The Word Abused, and Revealed

Let’s check in with one last telling detail — an aspect between two minor planets. The first is Atlantis (an asteroid discovered in 1931). Atlantis is associated with the abuse of technology and its power, and the sense of ‘imminent demise’ of civilization due to the unbridled use of that power. Then there’s Logos (a small planet right beyond Neptune’s orbit, discovered in 1997). Logos is actually a binary, with a co-planet of comparable size, called Zoe. (Technically the pair is now referred to as Logos | Zoe.) Research by Kirsti Melto indicates that Logos | Zoe is prominent in the charts of breakthroughs in computers and programming. Zoe means ‘life’. I think of Logos as the framework of technology (it means ‘the word’) and Zoe as being the spiritual content, when present — the life inside the machine.

In Julian’s chart these two are in a perfect square aspect. This is happening late in the cardinal signs, from Atlantis in Libra to Logos | Zoe in Cancer. He takes this personally; technology for Assange is a relationship, and he is personally embodying the ethical struggle suggested by Atlantis. We have all long suspected that our addiction to, and abuse of, technology has the power to take down our civilization.

Assange is aware of this, and he is a kind of personal intervention in the process of a society that is committing suicide. And I do mean personal. With that Scorpio Moon and Cancer Sun, he feels what he is doing. He is acting on a combination of instinct, intuition and intellect — but make no mistake, he is not detached from his work. This is personal; it’s a matter of heart and soul, and he is aware the influence that he can have by using technology to reveal the truth.

“To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly, for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not,” he once posted to his blog, explaining the WikiLeaks philosophy.

The regimes’ resistance to change is their worst weakness. They become utterly brittle, and creative activity ceases. That makes them vulnerable — as we can plainly see.

Yours & truly,

Additional research: Tracy Delaney, Amanda Painter, Carol van Strum.

And for our next act…the Sagittarius New Moon

When you look at a conventional astrology chart, you’re only seeing a small part of the picture. This is little comfort to those who stare at the page (of a normal chart) wondering what the holy heck it all means — and if you’re trying to learn, give it time and pay attention to your experience of existence. Let’s have a go at the Sagittarius New Moon.

Sagittarius New Moon set for Washington, DC. Appropriately, Pallas — the planet of politics — is the highest point in the chart.

Here is a conventional chart, okay, a little more than conventional — it has a few extra points. It’s set for Washington, DC, since that is where the action seems to be these days. And I do mean action — with the WikiLeaks revelations erupting on five different fronts, 42 members of the Senate (I won’t name their political party affiliation) signed a letter saying they won’t let anything happen till we charge the national credit card and give $700 billion more to the wealthiest Americans while the government supports a heroin trader in Afghanistan to the tune of a million dollars per soldier, per year. A new banking crisis is looming — that would be Subprime Part Two. And though nobody has mentioned it this week, despite the chilly weather in most of North America, the ice caps are still melting.

The Sagittarius New Moon is conjunct Pholus, a centaur (a little Chiron-like planet) that opens the jar and lets stuff out that’s not coming back in. My favorite key phrase is “small cause, big effect,” which I learned from my old friend and teacher in Munich, astrologer and classical guitarist Robert von Heeren. The Sun-Moon-Pholus conjunction is sitting on the Great Attractor, the biggest thing known in the universe. So it’s fitting that, this very week, every issue that has been suppressed for a decade is coming out all at once.

Meanwhile, Jupiter, the ruler of Sagittarius, is conjunct Uranus — that’s big news all by itself; and Chiron and Neptune are in a near-perfect conjunction in Aquarius. All of this amplifies and features into the dynamic of this rather potent and unpredictable New Moon.

Yet there is much more going on behind the scenes. I present this information at a slight risk of overwhelm, but I want to show you what it’s possible to see and work with. I’ll give a couple of examples and leave you to your weekly horoscope. This little table tells us what, from about 100 points that Tracy Delaney (the programmer) and I have tossed into the box, shows up in mid-Sagittarius. Amycus speaks of getting the word out. Icarus is about peak experiences.

Points in mid-Sagittarius, at the Sagittarius New Moon.

Sun and Moon are precisely, to the degree, conjunct one of the earlier centaurs — Hylonome. This is about the cry of the poor (key phrase from Juan Revilla) and it addresses collective grief and ‘senseless’ loss. Note, of the points I routinely use, this is the only one occupying the degree of the New Moon, and it’s a potent one. Hylonome made a stunning appearance conjunct the Scorpio New Moon precisely during the funeral of Yasser Arafat in late 2004 — a jaw-dropping astrological synchronicity.

Switching methods for a moment, the degree symbol (also called Sabian Symbol) for 14 Sagittarius (anything numbered higher than 13 is occupying the 14th degree) is: The Great Pyramid and the Sphinx. Dane Rudhyar interprets this as, “The enduring power of occult knowledge and of its quasi-divine Custodians, ‘seed men’ of a previous cycle of existence.” Well doesn’t that just illustrate WikiLeaks and its editor magnificently.

We see that Pholus is exactly conjunct the Great Attractor. This is a long and slow aspect and it’s precise right now; what comes out now is not going back, and it’s going to get bigger. Good Morning America — the truth is out.

This is conjunct Narcissus, who sees his own reflection in the pond. You could say he ‘falls in love’ or you could say that this is about self-awareness; and it’s about the effect of narcissism on the global political process. Close by is Ixion (anyone is capable of anything; amorality; what we do with our second chance) — we’re seeing plenty of that. Next is a really interesting pair of very different points: the first is Cupido (a hypothetical; it doesn’t exist, but it’s there to work with) which Martha Wescott delineates as: “issues in the family history; group unity or dynamics” followed by Quaoar, an actual planet beyond Pluto that says exactly the same thing. Quaoar adds the theme of our creation myth. Who are we and how did we get here? That is the mystery of The Pyramid and the Sphinx.

This New Moon is about the family of humanity. Welcome to it. The rest of the minor planets are listed here, at Serennu.com.

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, December 3, 2010, #842 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Aries Confidential

You have seen the power of negotiation, and you’ve seen what happens when you disregard certain communication protocols. Yet your quest is to be a sincere person, and you may be reviled by the notion that you have to be two-faced as a means of social lubrication. Circumstances of your life, particularly of your professional life, are calling on you to be direct and to take authority. I would suggest the following: be direct with yourself first. If you know the lay of the land, and have a sense of who is playing what game, you will feel less defensive; that means you’ll be more receptive to information. Second, you don’t actually have to say much. One technique is to ask people what they know rather than telling them what you know. You will learn something along the way, people you’re working with will have the sense that you’re listening, and then you will be in a better position to have your knowledge be your point of authority. So gather your information, assemble the pieces and make sure you use your power judiciously.

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

Taurus Confidential

Be aware of a tendency to think that your faith rules the world. It may rule your world, and that would be enough, though I suggest you back away from any possibility of being an evangelist. Faith teaches in silence, through actions and through the passage of time. Your mere awareness of something is an influence. The thoughts you think have potency beyond what you have ever imagined. This is particularly true for how they influence your own state of mind, emotions and sense of the future. Obsession is not certainty, though you may be riveted on a particular subject that you cannot let go of. That represents energy, and it may represent ideas, and an appropriate and useful response is to focus your mind in a creative and constructive way. Remember that you cannot control the future, but you can certainly influence it. One gift of the present moment is that you have enough experience to not make the same mistakes again, particularly in a relationship.

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

Gemini Confidential

You may feel like you’re in over your head with a situation that, at the moment, seems to have total power over your life. It may be a sexual obsession, it may be a fear that you have no choice but to encounter, or it may be coming to the realization that someone has tremendous influence over you. I suggest you think of the situation in terms of an agreement or a contract. This will be a way of processing your emotions through a rational filter. What have you actually agreed to? What has someone else committed to? And how does the current situation reflect these facts? You may determine that the facts and your emotional state have no apparent relationship; that your intensity is not grounded in reality. No matter how powerful someone may seem, or a situation may appear to be, the person you need to negotiate your freedom with is yourself.

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

Cancer Confidential

You have boundless energy at your disposal, and it’s yours to direct toward healing, productivity or pleasure. The three have more in common than you may realize; anything that nourishes one of these concepts in truth feeds all three. We’re trained to think that anything meaningful has to be done in a big way; that at any moment of decision, you must ‘figure out what to do with the rest of your life’. What you do these weeks may indeed influence the rest of your life, and it may resolve something you’ve carried around for a long time. Yet the way that will happen is a supreme focus on the present moment. What you want is a state of wellbeing now, rather than something deferred to the future. That is nothing more or less than being present in your experience. It’s about recognizing that your whole life has led to this moment, and that this moment is the portal to your future. Stand in that doorway and feel the energy move through you and around you.

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

Leo Confidential

This weekend’s New Moon in your fellow fire sign Sagittarius is designed to open up your sense of what is possible, if you apply your creativity. I suggest you let your curiosity lead the way to direct experience, rather than theory. You do not need to exert much in the way of effort, or think of this as requiring anything special; curiosity is powerful and it’s inherently creative. Remember that all creative energy is connected to sexual energy. I recognize that not everyone ‘agrees’ with this, but for evidence I would merely point to existence itself. A little of this energy can go a long way; the small choices you make now have an extra potent ability to help you create your life, experimenting and experiencing and feeling your way through existence. I suggest you keep in mind what it is you want to create; hold a vision for yourself and the life that you want.

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

Virgo Confidential

Subtle adjustments you make to your emotional patterning may result in significant progress toward healing. We typically want to ‘fix everything’ about ourselves, without recognizing that patterns develop and evolve over time; the most meaningful part of the process is initiating them and gradually maintaining them into existence. This is particularly meaningful where improving your health and wellbeing are concerned. For you that comes down to courting an inner sense of safety. I recognize that we are under the constant influence to not feel safe. We are given reasons to feel threatened nearly all the time. It would help if you removed those external influences, so that this way you can tune into the ones in your mind: those messages are the ones you need to respond to specifically by wanting something else, something better; a safe place within your own thoughts.

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

Libra Confidential

Consider yourself on the verge of a decision, which involves whether you will embrace yourself fully; whether you will give (to yourself) or withhold (from yourself) the love that you seek. This is the question that lurks inside the drama of what we call love. Here, the phrasing is clear and the choice is simple: and it depends on no other person. I recognize this presents a kind of metaphysical problem. If ‘how we feel about ourselves creates our experience of relationships’, does that mean we control them? Obviously not: there are other options. When we resonate with ourselves in a way that is true or loving, we create a resonance field, and we draw or repel appropriate people. The message of the current charts is simple — how you feel about yourself is the most significant metric of how you will experience existence. And you have reason to feel good; you’ve been practicing.

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

Scorpio Confidential

Gender and sex (as in the many forms of interplay of male and female, inner and outer) are fascinating, beautiful things to explore and play with, don’t you agree? There are so many shades and hues of attraction, empathy and simpatico; so many gradations of distaste and repulsion. With Venus now back in your sign after the recent retrograde phase, you have a strong emotional magnet pulling you inward toward a mysterious other within yourself. The world is rampant with drama of ‘the other’ being an external. It has an all-consuming quality, at the same time there are a diversity of taboos on taking that whole discussion to an inner plane. There is a force of nature that exists within yourself, and it has some quality of being your polar opposite; in truth it is what you seek in others, that has so often been the source of so much drama — and that aspect of you is now making itself known.

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

It’s time to have full confidence in your talent. There comes a time when, after years of development, you take the leap into the truth of that notion. You know that what you create is fully worthy of existence in the universe. You are witness to its independent life beyond you, and I believe that deep down you are confident that it will support you economically. I would emphasize that these are recognitions now available on the emotional rather than the intellectual level — things that work better when you feel them. It is one thing to know them in your mind; it’s another to feel the truth in your body, something akin to balancing on a bicycle. Remember, on a bicycle you can go nearly anywhere, but not everywhere at once.

Sagittarius audio coming soon!

Capricorn Confidential

So much of what you want seems to depend on others — and so much of your experience the past year or two has been about learning how to depend on yourself. You might think of what you’re learning as a form of autonomy. That is true, to a point; for as long as we need someone to change the oil on our car, we’re not really autonomous. But what you are acquiring is sufficient independence to explore interdependence. That is different than codependency, which is an unhealthy overreliance on the other. The associations you’re cultivating at this time will form the basis of community based on actual mutual interests and common ground. There is the potential for creating something far greater than the sum of the parts; human alchemy of the first order, for which you are a catalyst.

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

Aquarius Confidential

You have plenty to celebrate. It’s true that you also have your moments of fear and doubt, and I can empathize if you feel that your shadow runs a little deeper and darker than some others you know. That means your light will shine equally bright and moreover, that you are moving steadily along the path to fully integrating the many facets of who you are. But setting your spiritual psychology aside, I can tell you this. You are in a remarkable moment for making your existence known, and for influencing your community (and that may include community of interest, circle of friends or something similar). Though I’m not sure what you do with your life, I can offer you this — you are onto something significant, and some idea that has the power to shape your world, if not the world. Speak clearly rather than loudly. Don’t worry about the ‘ultimate effect’ of what you put out. Simply trust.

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

Pisces Confidential

This is a moment filled with great potential for you, in the aspect of life that some call ‘career’. I prefer to use other concepts — such as expressing your life purpose, making your way in the world, and shining in your chosen field. But let’s keep cause and effect in the right order; that’s the mission of any true seeker. It is who you are that is doing the expressing, making your way or shining your light. There is no ‘thing’ you are after, and you are existing and growing rather than careering. Existence as you are experiencing it now is a process of original invention. You are becoming something new every day and indeed moment. This is unnerving for some, who need a reference point to the past in order to feel secure. You have no need for such a pretense; this moment is offering you everything — but it’s an intense, potent and moreover rare moment. Be mindful. Be present. Be real, and gently so.

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