Dear Friend and Reader:

Monday’s Full Moon in Pisces is one of those gems of astrology, as beautiful for its celestial poetry as for its significance as a moment of spiritual opening.

In honor of this event, I’ll be hosting a live, call-in edition of Planet Waves FM beginning at 8 pm EDT on Monday, Sept. 8. The exact Full Moon aspect will happen during the program. Consider this a Full Moon ritual and celebration for the Planet Waves community. Everyone is invited — you may read the sign-up details here.

Full Moon rises over the Acropolis in Athens, October 2011. The large structure, under renovation, is the Parthenon (completed 438 BCE), which was in ancient times not a temple but rather seems to have been a storehouse for treasures. Photo by Anthony Ayiomamitis.

The Pisces Full Moon is sublime, carrying an inherent mysticism that even atheists and skeptics will feel. The Moon loves Pisces, and the Sun’s presence in Virgo fully activates the personal integration process that I described in last week’s edition.

The Full Moon will be conjunct both Chiron and Borasisi in Pisces, which are in a slowly-developing conjunction of their own (that rare event, which happened last in 1949, is exact in 2015 and 2016 but it’s very close now). Chiron is a centaur object with an orbit just over 50 years. Borasisi is an object in a region just beyond Pluto, with an orbit of 292 years. Discovered in 1999, Borasisi is an early discovery in the Kuiper Belt. It was named for a deity in the Kurt Vonnegut novel Cat’s Cradle, which is largely a commentary on the lack of ethics in science.

A Moon-Sun event illuminates whatever it touches, and in this case it’s making contact with an aspect that carries a theme of healing our capacity for faith. Chiron in Pisces would be enough to suggest this theme, though with Borasisi we add the specific theme of what we believe and why. (I wrote a detailed article about Borasisi in March 2011.)

What do we hold as truth, and on what basis? Why do people so often believe what is not true, and disbelieve what is true? What is the difference between belief, hope and faith?

These are deep questions, and they will filter through consciousness intuitively as this Full Moon peaks. You might consider any topic with these ideas as your background against which to ponder them.

One of the crisis points of humanity, now and many times in the past, involves the issues of belief, hope and faith. Where a person puts their faith, they offer their power. If you put it in science, you give your power to science. If you put it in money, you give your power to money. If you trust your own inner creative source, your own connection to the All There Is, you invest your power there. This Full Moon is saying notice where you make your investment.

With Chiron so involved, there is an invitation to be open to your faith in yourself, in particular your faith in your ability to heal yourself. Chiron is also a reminder that this whole topic is one of the deepest injuries to which humanity has been subjected, often by interests who profit from the absence of (or conscious destruction of) organic, intuitive faith — and there are many.

Photo by Anthony Ayiomamitis.

Regarding the psychic climate of this Full Moon, expect plenty of energy coming through. Somewhat like a homeopathic remedy, the Pisces Full Moon seems to have its roots on the subtle planes, which will then broadcast through to the temporal plane. This may be a pleasant rush of information, or the sensation of being overwhelmed in a way that you cannot really describe.

Full Moons always come with a cresting of energy, though Moon-Chiron has a bristling quality, a palpable sensation. People with this aspect in their natal charts possess an intensity that is difficult to describe, which others often feel as a charismatic quality when the person walks into the room.

Another feature of this Full Moon is an exact trine to Juno in Cancer. This wonderfully complex, sometimes annoying, always meaningful asteroid describes values about marriage and marriage-like relationships. Its underlying quality is the need to express one’s needs, feelings and expectations before they turn into resentment.
The flow of energy opened by the Moon-Juno trine will make this easier.

The Full Moon and Juno are trine Saturn in Scorpio. Be aware that emotional patterns are likely to clone themselves and reproduce, so make conscious choices about how you feel and how you respond to your feelings and those of others.

On the Virgo Sun’s side of the Full Moon, there is a conjunction of the Sun with asteroids Photographica, Child and Toro. I am not sure what to make of this conjunction (and I don’t want to speculate). I will say that Photographica, often literally involved with photographic imagery, adds to the questions above with what do you believe, when you see it in a photograph?

I would add one other bit — photos can play a profound role in the healing process. I have covered that in a Planet Waves article available in the archives. You may have a productive experience looking at childhood photos of yourself this weekend, and asking yourself where that little kid went. He or she is still right inside you; this is an invitation to make contact.

Chart for the Pisces Full Moon. The Moon is located in the top left side of the chart, looking like a gray crescent. It’s exactly opposite the Sun, a yellow circle. Chiron is next to the Moon, as is Borasisi.

There are two other features of the current sky worth mentioning. One is that we are currently under a grand fire trine. The trine consists of an Aries cluster (Uranus, South Node, Eris), Jupiter in Leo, and a Sagittarius cluster, the main feature consisting of
many newer discoveries, including centaur Pholus.

This is an opportunity for accessing sustained fiery energy, something that is rare to find. The thing to watch out for, given all the factors involved (especially Pholus and Uranus), is that energy running out of control. Fire is useful only when it’s contained and directed, otherwise it becomes destructive. This grand trine is illustrating the out-of-control militancy that we are seeing in some parts of the world, and it’s worth asking what, if anything, can bring it under control.

Finally, Mercury and Venus changed (or will change) signs this week. Mercury ingressed Libra on Sept. 2 and Venus will ingress Virgo tomorrow (Sept. 5). Both of these sign changes add the potential for a thoughtful, analytical quality to what is otherwise a somewhat volatile sky.

Note that Mercury and Venus occupy one another’s signs of rulership. Mercury is associated with Virgo and Venus with Libra — their current placements are what is called mutual reception.

Here’s how I translate that. If your thinking seems caught in a pattern that does not allow you to draw conclusions or even useful inferences, try reversing your logic. Switch positions, consider the situation from someone else’s point of view, or think your steps through in reverse.

Where Venus and Libra are involved, consider how you’re being influenced by appearances.

Where Mercury and Virgo are involved, consider whether you’re overemphasizing the details, or overlooking them.

One key here is to think actively rather than passively. Humans have a tendency to want someone else to do the work of thinking for them. As much as we may say we don’t want to be told what to do, we love to be told what to do because it seems to alleviate the burden of thought.

Mercury and Venus are saying: think for yourself. Perceive your reality your own way, and make your choices based on what you observe, what you learn and what you know.

I am looking forward to hearing your experiences of this astrology in Monday’s live call-in edition of Planet Waves FM (check this link to sign up). Also of note, many readers sent in their ideas about Virgo as a point of integration, some of which I read on the air in the current edition of Planet Waves FM. There is more information about the Full Moon in this edition, as well as my description of (and some advocacy for) homeopathic medicine.

The Planet Waves horoscope below is based on a reading of the Full Moon chart for the 12 signs and rising signs.

With love, your astrologer,

Planet Waves (ISSN 1933-9135) is published each Tuesday morning and Thursday afternoon in Kingston, New York by Planet Waves, Inc. Annual basic subscription rate: $99/year. Core community membership: $199/year. Editor and Publisher: Eric Francis Coppolino. Business Manager: Chelsea Bottinelli. Web Developer: Anatoly Ryzhenko. Copy Editor: Jessica Keet. Research, Writing and Editing: Planet Waves is produced by a team consisting of Fe Bongolan, Brendan Merritt, Amy Elliott, Judith Gayle, Kelly Janes, Elizabeth Michaud, Amanda Moreno, Amanda Painter, Casey Smith, Carol van Strum, Len Wallick, Lizanne Webb and Chad Woodward.

 

 

Mercury in Libra Weighs the Unseen Side of LOTR

By Amanda Painter

With Mercury newly in Libra, relationship communication, diplomacy and a desire for balance or justice is likely at the forefront of your consciousness. And as you know, there are at least two ways to look at any given situation — usually several.

Taking this to the extreme, a pair of writers on the McSweeny’s website named Jeff Alexander and Tom Bissell have imagined a dialogue between linguist and social theorist Noam Chomsky and the late radical historian Howard Zinn, in which the two scholars provide unused DVD audio commentary for J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Fellowship of the Ring. The result, as you might imagine, turns the socio-political dynamics of the narrative — and traditional audience/reader understanding of its meaning — on its head.

Below is a short excerpt specially chosen for Mercury in Libra.

Chomsky: It’s just so complicated, the webs of relationships.

Zinn: Now Frodo, son of Drogo, agrees to take the ring to Mount Doom. Something tells me that no one in Mordor calls it Mount Doom.

Chomsky: And everyone baits Frodo into this. “You are our agent, going on a suicide mission. You have to do it for the Motherland.”

Zinn: So is Frodo the Mohammed Atta figure in this story?

Chomsky: He’s a fanatical true believer. And crazy. Obviously, totally insane.

Zinn: And listen to what Aragorn tells Frodo: “You have my sword.”

Chomsky: So militaristic.

Zinn: Notice that no one says, “You have my diplomatic skills.” I think the only real diplomat of Middle Earth is Gollum. He’s the only one who makes any meaningful, cross-cultural exchange with any of these people. Being a torture victim at the hand of the Orcs, and his attempted strangulation of the Hobbits.

Chomsky: I think of Gollum as more of a deluded madman, one more sinned against than sinned.

Zinn: There’s room for argument.

 

 

Of Virgo and Pisces — and the Pisces Full Moon

In this week’s edition of Planet Waves FM, I look closely at the relationship between Virgo and Pisces, focused on the Pisces Full Moon that happens on Sept. 8. This includes a discussion of how the Full Moon is conjunct both Chiron and Borasisi. In the second half of the program, I read your commentaries about Virgo as a point of integration. These are some brilliant ideas from Planet Waves subscribers who have apparently been contemplating the Virgo question for a while. My musical guest is Sheila Chandra.

 

 

Your Monthly Horoscopes — and our Publishing Schedule Notes

Your extended monthly horoscopes for September published Friday, Aug. 28. We published your extended monthly horoscopes for August Thursday, July 24. We also published your Inner Space horoscope for September Tuesday, Sept. 2. Moonshine horoscopes for the Aquarius Full Moon published Saturday, Aug. 9. Please note, we normally publish the extended monthly horoscope on the first Friday after the Sun has entered a new sign.

 

 

Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, Sept. 4, #1014 | By Eric Francis

Aries (March 20-April 19) — You need an outlet for all this energy. It has to be something that matches your imagination, and this in turn is likely to be a bit much for the people you’ve been associating with lately. It looks like most of the people around you are running about 15 degrees cooler than you are. Said another way, you may not find many others who are willing to take the creative or social risks you want to take, so I suggest you not let anyone hold you back, or persuade you that you’re being a little too wild. You may be, for their tastes, but not for what your soul is calling you to express or explore. You may need a little self-coaxing to openly admit what you want, and a bit more to act on it — though I suggest you move with the current momentum of your imagination, while that momentum is carrying you.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Marriage is not the solution to everything. If there is such a solution, that would be trust, and it seems obvious that trust is what people are seeking when they invest themselves in relationships that are designed to be ‘permanent’. Yet it’s easy not to trust, and to give oneself reasons not to trust, even in the seemingly most secure situation. Where do you stand on this subject? One way to measure that is by considering carefully what you say and what you don’t say to the people you consider your intimates. You seem to be of two minds about this — sometimes willing to be totally transparent and at others feeling like this is inconvenient, or an unnecessary risk. You don’t need to overanalyze this. If you have something on your mind, say so, and if you have a question, ask directly. In fact, make a wish.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — The forthcoming Full Moon streaks across the sky in the angle of your chart involved with achievement and reputation. It’s a direct invitation to be bold about who you are and what you do, and to keep those two things as aligned as you can. I suggest you eliminate the concept of ‘career’ from your vocabulary and instead replace it with the concept of your vocation. A vocation is a calling, and there has rarely been a time when a calling was summoning you more boldly. Are you listening? Can you hear it? Can you see the signs leading you to the place you want to be? Or are you afraid that what you want to do is too good to be true, or too adventurous to be possible? Perhaps it might be for most people on most days, but not for you, at this time in your life.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — There’s just one thing left to do, and that is to have faith in yourself, in your dreams and in your potential. Well, there’s just one other thing to do, which is to take action while you are feeling inspired and bold. It’s way too easy to wait for the wave of confidence to pass. It’s also way too easy to allow yourself to be motivated by frustration, which has its place, though as you’ve seen over the past few months, there are much more preferable ways to get yourself going. Next week’s Full Moon in your fellow water sign Pisces is inviting you to dream big. This means not allowing yourself to be limited by what you considered out of reach in the past. Consider what you would do if you didn’t believe in any limits at all, and then move precisely in that direction.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — Go beyond secrecy and taboo in any form. The more secrets you let out of the bag, the more fun you will have. There are two reasons for this. One is that keeping information to yourself is like wearing a brick around your neck. The other reason is that all of the really enticing stuff we have to share is usually kept behind the veil of secrecy, where it doesn’t get a chance to flourish. The Pisces Full Moon takes place in one of the most intimate angles of your chart. You will get a chance to see that intimacy means openness and transparency. To get the benefits of this event, it would be helpful to lean into the side of revealing more rather than revealing less. If you find yourself revealing one fact or feeling, that is the one to reveal. You will feel better, and unplug those places where your energy has been getting blocked.

 

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — Imagine a world with no concept of ‘other’ or of opposition, a world where you are in harmony with everyone and everything around you. This may be difficult to conjure up on a planet where just about everyone and everything seems to be in some state of competition or conflict with something else, though I invite you to use your imagination. How might that feel? Now consider the possibility that each day that you live is a step that you take on the way to getting to that place of integration. In truth such a state of existence begins within your mind, not as something you impose on yourself but rather as something you observe about yourself. What’s beautiful about the next few days is an opening through which a rather unusual light shines, and you get to see yourself reflected in it.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Pleasure, imagination, curiosity — these are some of the most potent healing tools available to us. Yet to be effective there needs to be some soul presence, or a conscious idea of seeking self-knowledge. I am not talking about entertainment. For many people the opening into the healing dimension may as well be a sealed door expertly polished into marble to make it seem like it’s not there. However, it is most certainly there, and you already have confirmation that such a dimension exists and that you can indeed access it, even if you cannot predict when. Right now the astrology is aligning in a way that makes this dimension closer than ever, and that increases your ability to feel your way to it. Just remember that you know you’re responding to something that is real, and to which you have direct access, if you need it.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Monday’s Pisces Full Moon happens in what you might think of as the pleasure center of your solar chart — the 5th house. Most of what passes for pleasure in Western society is really an effort to avoid pain. There are several ways you can tell the real thing from the counterfeit version. One is the presence of curiosity about yourself, and it’s an intensely pleasurable curiosity. It’s the kind of feeling good that goes deeper into previously unknown, or forgotten, regions of who you are. Another is the desire for freedom. That can translate to craving the unknown, which is a specific kind of liberty. This will teach you something about pleasure anxiety, which is really a form of self-control rooted in a ‘need’ for what is absolutely familiar. Take an extended moment and allow your existence to be a mystery and an adventure. You are being invited into an unusually deep inner space.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — Creativity must have an emotional source. It can feed you intellectually, and feed your quest, but the drive to create is body-level, akin to the need to breathe, or your response to pain. Actually those are fitting metaphors for the creative process, as it does involve an in-breath and out-breath of experience, and some of the world’s greatest creative works have served artists, musicians and writers as a way to process loss. For you, creativity helps you build your inner home. When you tap your gifts, you create a space of safety for yourself, and you can then move into that space and live more confidently. You might think of that as a kind of healing cave, from which emerge many resources and jewels you can share with those you love and care about.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — These years of your life have been some of the most driven and urgent ever, arriving with one enforced change after the next. Yet there is another way to evolve, which is to relax into what is possible. You don’t need to resist yourself, and you certainly don’t need to dwell on your worst fears. You can find that space inside yourself where you have no concerns at all about whether you’re accepted by others, or have a place in society, and when you get there, you may feel like you’re taking a warm bath for the first time. There is a way of being where you can, at least for a while, step out of any judgment, which is more likely to feel like stepping into self-embrace. If you feel a tinge of guilt, don’t fight it; keep going; you are headed in the right direction. It will rinse off of your skin like soap.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — What is it that makes you human? I would propose that it’s a self-reflective quality — the awareness of your own awareness, which leads to consciousness of your own existence. Because everyone has a unique emotional makeup, that consciousness might emphasize pain, or pleasure, or love, or anger, or desire, or the desire to create. Humanity is the capacity to be aware of such a feeling and to respond to it. As the Pisces Full Moon lights up the dimension of your horoscope associated with your inner resources, and the feelings you have for yourself, I suggest you let the awareness of any emotion, thought or desire remind you of the fact that you exist. After awareness, the next stage of evolution is the ability to respond to what you feel, and to consciously create a desired state of experience. You are closer to that self-creative state than you’ve ever been.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — Speaking of human, what is it that makes you a Pisces? What is the confirmation of your inner knowledge that you were born at the right time? Is it your love of nature, of sex, of music, of sensory experience in any form? Is it your unquenchable longing for cosmic connection, to yourself and to other people? Is it the love of sacred plants? Whatever it may be, this weekend (and Monday) is the time to go fully into that experience, with no expectations — give yourself the gift of a full-on experiment and see where that takes you. With the Moon conjunct Chiron and with Neptune right in the neighborhood, that could well be anywhere — or anywhere you want. For reference, the Moon ingresses Pisces Sunday at 7:47 pm EDT (23:47 UTC) and reaches full phase Monday at 9:38 pm EDT (Tuesday at 1:38 UTC). See you there!