Tag Archives: Rick Santorum

The Personal is Personal: Nessus in Aquarius

Dear Friend and Reader:

I propose that we need to ponder how and why Rick Santorum is doing so well in the Republican primaries. This week he tied Mitt Romney in Michigan, the state where Romney’s dad was one of the most venerated governors. Romney got a few more votes; Santorum won exactly half the delegates. He did so spending one-sixth the money that Romney spent, working with far less experience, a much smaller organization and a perfectly vicious message.

John F. Kennedy, the first and only Catholic president, wanted to guard against merging state and religious interests, consistent with the Bill of Rights and the main text of the U.S. Constitution.

Though it’s couched in moral and religious terms, the message amounts to: women and their reproductive capacities are the property of men and all sex is the property of the church-state.

In case you don’t know the name, Rick Santorum is the former senator from Pennsylvania who has equated same-sex marriage with men and dogs getting it on, and with pedophilia and with three men getting married. He has been at the head of the class on the ban birth control message, importing the position of the Holy See into Republican politics verbatim. Earlier this week he took on John F. Kennedy, the only Catholic president, who in the 1960 campaign emphasized his intention to honor separation of church and state. Many had falsely assumed that his first loyalty would be to the Pope — or used that idea to discredit him knowing it wasn’t true. And apparently Santorum is worried that JFK might be on the Democratic ticket in November.

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote,” Kennedy said in a speech at the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in September 1960. Santorum this week told the nation that Kennedy’s position “makes me want to throw up.”

Can you say American Taliban?

This comes in the context of many other related developments. Four different states are currently considering requiring vaginal ultrasounds prior to a woman getting an abortion. That is to say, the patient (or the government) would be required to pay for an unnecessary procedure requiring penetration prior to exercising a constitutional right. Abortion is just as much a constitutional right as is going to church, per the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.

Their commercials talk about smaller, less invasive government, which may just mean that it fits into smaller places.

Many states in recent years have introduced or adopted a diversity of laws designed to reduce access to abortion. If you’re an abortion doctor in Kansas, you stand a good chance of being shot.

And lately, taking this a few steps further, the anti-birth control movement has been big news. Anti-abortion activists know that the Supreme Court decision underlying Roe v. Wade is a previous decision involving birth control — the 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut decision. Yet the Supreme Court is not the current focus — the health insurance system is. On Thursday, the Senate defeated Sen. Roy Blunt’s (R-Missouri) proposed amendment that would have allowed employers to decline to cover health benefits that conflict with their purported religious beliefs. This too was being done in the form of “religious freedom” — honoring my religious beliefs, I will deny you yours. While not always connected to religion, similar issues are gaining ground in other countries as well. For example, obstetricians in Western Australia last week called for fetal homicide laws that give a fetus legal rights to be used to criminally prosecute moms and midwives if a baby dies after a home birth.

The immediate history of this stance in modern American politics goes back to 1981, when Ronald Reagan and the Heritage Foundation successfully got the first Abstinence Only indoctrination program through congress. This was back when the whole “say no” thing got going and, in the wake of the 1970s, sexual purity campaigns became a standard part of American politics. Not only would they succeed in getting real sex education thrown out of many schools, and abstinence programs put in place abroad as a requirement of foreign aid, authentic discussion of sex would have a difficult time finding a home. And now we have a presidential candidate who embodies this message.

Rick Santorum at the bully pulpit.

While we’re pondering why Santorum is doing so well — he won the Iowa caucus, as well as the Colorado and Minnesota primaries, tied in Michigan and has had solid support in every other primary this year — we might want to consider that the whole religion thing is a ruse.

For one thing, he’s an impressive liar, claiming that “people of faith have no role in the public square” when we all know that the “conservative base” (of fundamentalist Christians) is leading the Republican party and all of national politics ever further to the right: toward a politics of so-called morality, fear and control.

Sex is often the vehicle that’s used to do this, since so many people have so much unresolved material, so much guilt about sex and so much shame about what was done to them as children. A Rick Santorum would have no hook into the psyche of any person or the public consciousness unless there were a pre-existing weakness. He is a kind of opportunistic infection that seems to be taking hold in a weakened, low-vitality body politic that’s terrified of freedom. Is there any other way that a Rick Santorum could be taken seriously? Said another way, he’s the reflection of all of the unresolved baggage that’s being dragged around in American culture.

He’s only running in the Republican primary race so far, but if he gets the nomination that puts him one stolen election away from the presidency. Remember, Mercury goes retrograde right in the middle of Election Day 2012. The only other time that’s happened in American history was Election Day 2000, when Al Gore won and George W. Bush took office.

It’s Not Normal — It’s Weird

One thing about all this anti-sex, anti-women rhetoric is that to most people, it doesn’t seem that strange. It may seem wrong, it may seem unjust, but the truth is, it’s really, truly, weird. It’s weird from a human perspective. Women exist and are more than half the population. Aside from having a shorter average height than men, there would seem to be no reason for a bias. And sex is a normal biological function, essential to emotional health and to the basic happiness of many people. It might seem to have a place in national politics, but what place, when you consider the ice caps melting, peak oil, various global economies teetering on the brink of collapse, world hunger, children in sweatshops who made nearly every stitch of your clothing, nuclear meltdowns and numerous wars being fought or threatened? Why is sex an issue at all?

Pro-life van parked outside of the women’s clinic that was bombed by Eric Rudolph in the mid-90s. Don’t try to wrap your head around why anyone who claims to be “pro-life” would bomb people. Photo by David Walker from Wikipedia.

The reason that attacking sex doesn’t seem weird is because the attack matches the misgivings that so many people already have — misgivings that are the toxic residue of previous attacks that go back through the ages. It’s possible to have the current ‘discussion’ because nearly every other discussion has been banned or shamed out of existence. This has done nothing but add to the sexual pain that so many people are in, many of whom have no idea they have an option, much less any ideas what those options might be. With rare exceptions, even many therapists are embarrassed to have real conversations about sex. This is a weakened state; it undermines us from the core outward. Passion in every form is compromised: creativity, political will, relating to one another free from paranoia and many other ways. With this comes the idea that “sex is not so important,” and that the only real pleasure from sex comes when you’re “in love” — which negates the exploratory and experimental kind of sex that helps people figure out who they are.

Sad to say that in my experience as an astrologer and participant in the world, few people have any clue where to turn even if they figure out they want to heal and grow past this insanity. And few people are willing to look at the ways that sexual injury, repression and general misgiving compromise every other aspect of their lives. The sexual energy has to go somewhere (we all have plenty of it, no matter what we might think), and where it goes if not into creative play is into neurosis and other forms of mental imbalance, mental illness and personality armor. If you’re wondering about Rick Santorum’s power source, it’s sexual energy per se. It’s part of why he’s so obsessed with the topic and cannot stop talking or thinking about it, and it’s why so many people are willing to listen.

I looked at his chart a few weeks ago in an edition of Planet Waves FM. If a chart could be dripping with emotional infection, his wins the prize. Charts have little meaning outside the context of a life — and the two conform to one another.

Nessus and the Anti-Sixties

You’ve probably read something about the current aspect that’s in the background of everything right now — the Uranus-Pluto square. This aspect is an outgrowth of the Uranus-Pluto conjunction of 1965-1966, and it’s the one I’ve suggested will make the Sixties look like a walk in the park. Uranus and Pluto are both slow-movers. They get together only rarely, especially in the heavy-hitting quadrature aspects — the right-angle ones (conjunction, square, opposition).

Uranus square Pluto on June 24, 2012. Nessus is in light blue, at the midpoint. Uranus, the blue H, is a rebellious influence, and is conjunct one of the more influential asteroids that day — Pallas Athene, which can represent a political leader or attorney involved in the situation.

We’ve been living with the warmup to the Uranus-Pluto square for a couple of years, and we haven’t even had the first exact contact yet — that’s in June, and the last of seven is in early 2015. The first undeniable signs that it was taking effect were Arab Spring, the Wisconsin rebellion and the Occupy movement, which all commenced within a few months.

To sum up, Pluto in Capricorn is gradually re-shaping the institutions of the world, causing some to collapse and others to become obsolete. Uranus in Aries is stirring up the quest for self-actualization and self-awareness. But it’s also the energy behind a kind of militant narcissism that we see in many of these anti-sex, anti-women operatives.

In many ways we’re still in an anti-Sixties time. Instead of people stating their desire for women’s rights (for example) we have an open movement to deny them. Instead of a quest for sexual liberation, we have an active movement to convince us that sex is wrong. This is part of a much wider social control campaign of which peoples’ misgivings about sex is the hook, the place where it’s easy to snag people, many of whom have fallen for the lie that they’re sinners and that there’s something wrong with their natural desires.

Where do we find this in the astrology? The chart above gives us a clue. It’s the chart for the Uranus-Pluto square. I’ve left four planets in the display. Pluto is the red one at the top. Uranus is the large blue glyph at the left. There’s a pale blue one about halfway between the two, which is Nessus. This is a centaur planet (in the same group as Chiron), which was discovered in 1993.

Nessus has themes that include the results of action, such as karma biting someone on the ass. Melanie Reinhart has noted that it’s the place where the buck stops. It often comes tinged with the darker sexual themes: sex where consent is in question, sex involving disease vectors, revenge and betrayal. Stepping outside of sexual themes, Nessus can represent an environment of psychological abuse, or a tendency to get caught in psychological abuse patterns. Chiron and Neptune recently left Aquarius and entered Pisces. That has left behind one last slow-mover — Nessus. In Aquarius, Nessus is involved in a group dynamic. Aquarian group dynamics include organizations, informal social networks and anything that considers itself elite.

Anti-choice students, some of the most impassioned activists of our day, at the 2004 March for Life. Photo from Wikipedia.

All year, Nessus is close to what’s called the midpoint of Uranus and Pluto. It splits the distance between the two better-known planets, revealing something underneath their dynamic. If the Uranus-Pluto square represents tension (it does) then the midpoint is the place where we can look for how to resolve that tension, or what the deeper issue might be. That deeper issue seems to be a form of sexual abuse projected into a group environment (Aquarius) with the help of the media, including the Internet.

Here, we have an image of the negativity being broadcast into the environment with its special obsession around sex. The dynamic is so beautifully illustrative of Nessus in Aquarius that it affirms 15 years of research into this small, little-known planet. You could say that those people who identify with Nessus are having their revolutionary impulses spurred, regressive though they may be.

If we need confirmation of this, in Rick Santorum’s natal chart, there is a conjunction of the Moon and Chiron right there in Aquarius. Some of his deepest personal wounding, particularly around women, is right there. And this is square his natal Nessus in Taurus. So he’s getting both transiting Nessus and Uranus-Pluto at full strength. On one level he’s in tune with the times; on another, his deepest unresolved material is coming up and finding a home in the political discourse.

Among the places that you can turn for sane discussion of sex is the website of Betty Dodson. Betty and her creative partner, Carlin Ross, provide an example of what an authentic, friendly sexual conversation sounds like.

Yet he is merely a spokesperson for a perspective. He’s an extreme example of what can happen, indeed what in fact happens, when personal abuse issues are left untended and unresolved: one can easily become an abuser. Sociopaths often wear the uniform of a superhero, and clearly Santorum is Superman to his devotees. To anyone who is biologically and emotionally functional, he’s the ‘small government’ guy who wants to get between your legs with his ultrasound probe, get between you and your doctor, and ultimately between you and yourself.

Here’s the thing to remember: As the Uranus-Pluto aspect takes hold, everything will hinge on whether we can really address the issues of Nessus at the midpoint. In true centaur style, they will keep coming up for healing again and again until we see them for what they are — and address them directly, meaningfully and beyond their superficial expressions. Nessus in Aquarius is raising some deep issues and to get to the bottom, we’re going to need to go just a little deeper.

I was curious about this placement of Nessus at the midpoint of Uranus and Pluto, so I called up a minor planet specialist who also has a pulse on midpoints — Martha Lang-Wescott. Regarding Nessus and related bodies (in the centaur group), she said: “If you’re not willing to see yourself, these points can scare the pants off of you.”

Her take on Uranus square Pluto with Nessus involved is that, “It sounds like this unbidden empty narcissism surging from the depths of Pluto and all of its psychological scars. People can get distracted by the twinkles and the erratic behavior of Uranus and overlook Pluto,” which addresses deeper material and and is a more urgently necessary agent of growth. That erratic behavior includes the conduct of various political movements that want, in effect, to ban women from being people and who are creating a huge distraction in the process.

As such, she believes that it’s serving to mask a whole layer of awareness. “There is the show and the excitement of Uranus [in Aries], and then there’s this underbelly of the concealed drives of Pluto [in Capricorn], such as greed. Uranus presents as the perfect distraction — all this technology stuff — when Pluto is often acting invisibly. There’s also the attraction to the dangerous element of Pluto charisma. Nessus accents that quality of Pluto.”

She said that one theme of the Uranus-Pluto square is about “how power can be exerted using technology. At what point do people scream about that? Or are they so distracted that they’re willing to relinquish power and control over their lives? At first I thought, that nut [Santorum] doesn’t have a chance. But that he has a chance makes me scared for my country.”

Taking This Personally

For anyone interested in healing, there’s a valid question about what to do about this personally. I would note that from the start, questions of healing are headed directly for some of our most personal struggles around sex, including our phobias about how our ‘friends’ and other groups (including family) would respond if they knew the truth about our sexuality. I’ve said before that heterosexuals are some of the biggest closet cases, terrified of revealing their secrets for fear of excommunication. Lesbian and gay people have crossed this bridge a long time ago, recognizing that they were neither safe nor sane in the closet. Bisexual and transgender people are starting to figure it out.

Keith Haring illustrates coming out of the closet. It’s not just for gay people anymore.

Starting with Aquarius, there are at least two ways to look at the social environment. One is the way that it influences us. What choices do we make on the assumption of how others will judge us? That includes fear that the police are going to kick in the door; the fear that someone is spying on your Internet habits; the fear of getting fired because you have a certain sexual desire or tendency; and anything where the group dynamics of religion come into play.

If you actually start to notice how you’re responding to your own thoughts and feelings, you might begin to observe the relationship between you and all those expectations and presumptions.

The other side of Nessus in Aquarius is how you influence others around you with your actions and your choices. It’s your role in the dynamic, particularly as you make the commitment to healing. People will have a response to you, and your presence will shift the social dynamic around you. The response may not be positive. Women in particular, in my experience, are rarely supportive of one another’s forays into erotic freedom, no matter how meek. One sexually free woman can lower the price of marriage for a whole group of them.

Men tend to be much more supportive of one another’s experimentation — as long as it’s within the approved sexual orientation of the group. One man among others coming out as bisexual (for example) can make the rest feel threatened and stir up their homophobia (which means their sexual shadow material).

If you take a step out of your particular closet, that means announcing your existence in some way, which is an experiment. When you do, you’ll find out how your friends actually feel — and you may need to respond in some way as a result. It can be challenging indeed to find a group of friends who are supportive of your actual sexual and relational desires, and you may need to go it alone for a while. That’s more than enough to keep most people in the closet, wishing they could do something about their desires but terrified to take action in any form. And it’s also a pretty big excuse not to take any risks, particularly the risk of actually being yourself. After a while, though, the walls of that closet are likely to feel like they’re closing in.

As I’ve been reporting the past few weeks, Neptune has recently joined Chiron in Pisces, which is activating some of the most rich erotic territory of the zodiac. Neptune is feeding our dreams and fantasy lives, and providing plenty of inspiration for art and photography. Chiron is accentuating both curiosity and a craving for experience, and the awareness that experience is essential on the path to healing. Chiron in Pisces might point to any of a wide diversity of things you haven’t tried yet but have long wanted to. At a certain point, fantasy is not going to be enough.

Lovingly,

Additional Research: Christine Simek.

Note to Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces Readers: Birthday reports for Cap and Aqua will be available later today. Check your inbox for a second mailing with signup info. Pisces birthdays will be done early next week. Look for an announcement Monday night. These reports are a whole new spin on your annual astrology, picking up where Reality Check left off. This will be our first year completing all 12 signs! We appreciate your patience with the pause associated with the annual edition. — efc

The waxing Moon enters home-loving Cancer today, making this a good weekend to nest in. But Cancer is an emotional sign, so be prepared to feel anything that comes up for you a bit more deeply than usual over the next couple days, as the Moon picks up on considerable energy currently in Pisces. Note that the Moon is building toward the Virgo Full Moon on March 8.

Closer to the present moment, there are a number of aspects this weekend that point to turning points in relationships, including leaving behind one form of relating for another — or perhaps finding a new perspective on how your relationships can work. There are also some potentially volatile triggers in the sky, calling for awareness as to whether any conflict you may experience is actually located between you and another, or within yourself.

Continue reading.

Astrologically, this week’s theme has been one of ‘turning points’ — and nobody in politics saw this one coming. Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), a moderate known to split against her party on key votes, announced Tuesday that she will not seek a fourth term this year, despite original plans to do so. She has long been a ‘safe’ incumbent, having never lost an election in 35 years of politics. Her announcement is a monkey wrench in the Republicans’ plan to gain a majority in the U.S. Senate, and is an indicator of just how outrageously far the Republicans have slid to the right.

Olympia Snowe.

Snowe remarked in a prepared statement, “I do find it frustrating … that an atmosphere of polarization and ‘my way or the highway’ ideologies has become pervasive in campaigns and in our governing institutions.” According to the Portland (Maine) Press Herald, “… she has never seen a legislative body as ineffective as the current Senate. ‘Unfortunately, everything is concentrated in political messaging, and the art of governing and legislating has been virtually lost’, Snowe said.”

Snowe, who lives in Falmouth Maine, has served Maine as one of its two senators since 1995 and as U.S. Representative from its 2nd District for 16 years prior to that. She was the first woman to serve in both houses of state legislature and both houses of the U.S. Congress. Said Josh Tardy, a former House GOP leader who now works as a lobbyist, “On all sides, it blows (the race) wide open. The Democrats may take another focus on it and increase their field. It will create a frenzy on the Republican side.” Said another way, this makes it a lot harder for the GOP to take over the Senate in 2012.

In a ruling handed down Feb. 24 and announced Monday, federal judge Naomi Buchwald dismissed a case brought in New York by the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Assn. and others against agricultural chemical company Monsanto. The farmers were seeking to prevent Monsanto from suing them if their crops become contaminated by Monsanto’s patented products, genetically modified pollen which can drift onto nearby fields. Monsanto, in its insanity, is considering this contamination of farms adjoining those of its clients to be “patent infringement” and has been suing those farms.

According to the Organic Consumers Association, since the 1990s, “144 farmers have had lawsuits brought against them by Monsanto for alleged violations of their patented seed technology.
Monsanto has brought charges against more than 700 additional farmers who have settled out-of-court rather than face Monsanto’s belligerent litigious actions. Many of these farmers claim to not have had the intention to grow or save seeds that contain Monsanto’s patented genes.” Some farmers have stopped growing certain crops to avoid a lawsuit.

Said plaintiff organic farmer Bryce Stephens of Kansas, “The careless, inattentive, thoughtless and negligent advertisement Monsanto has published on their website to not exercise its patent rights for inadvertent trace contamination belies the fact that their policy is in reality a presumptuous admission of contamination by their vaunted product on my property, plants, seeds and animals.” As of mid-February, 300,000 activists, including country singer Willie Nelson, had joined the lawsuit as part of the “Occupy the Food System” campaign, protesting the corporate takeover of small farms and the use of harmful chemicals. The plaintiffs plan to appeal the ruling.

WikiLeaks announced Monday that it was releasing 5.5 million emails that detail corporate spying on activists. The emails were obtained from the servers of Stratfor, a private U.S.-based intelligence-gathering firm described by some as a ‘shadow CIA’ for corporations and government agencies.

Andy Bichelbaum of the Yes Men leads a musical outburst during a 2009 takeover of a Whole Foods Market in NYC. Photo by Eric.

The hackers group Anonymous claimed responsibility for acquisition of the emails. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the files implicate some of the world’s largest firms in corporate espionage, including Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs, Dow Chemical and sectors of the U.S. government, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Marine Corps and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Included among the activist groups apparently spied on are the Yes Men, subject of several previous Planet Waves articles.

Democracy Now! spoke with Andy Bichelbaum, co-founder of the Yes Men, who appeared as a spokesman for Dow Chemical on an eight-minute interview broadcast on BBC World. Bichelbaum said that Dow had finally taken responsibility for the Bhopal tragedy in India on its 20th anniversary, an event described in the emails. He told Amy Goodman, “What surprised us in those emails, though, was that we would have assumed that Dow would be really concerned with the exact issue of Bhopal and Dow’s responsibility, stuff that could directly impact their bottom line. But what Stratfor seems to be really a bit obsessed with is whether we or other organizations are going to draw this into a bigger critique of corporate power.”

The WikiLeaks/Stratfor story unfolded against the backdrop of Google’s planned change in their privacy policy. This change had many Internet users scrambling to suspend their Google browsing history, so that the company could not store and share detailed data about heir Internet habits — including medical reading, political reading, and porn — linked to their identity.

Conservative ‘commentator’ Andrew Breitbart died unexpectedly on Thursday at age 43. He was apparently losing his mind in the weeks before his death. Earlier this year, he confronted a group of Occupy protesters outside CPAC, a national conservative conference, screaming at both men and women, “stop raping people, stop raping the people … you freaks, you filthy freaks, you filthy filthy filthy raping murdering freaks.” Breitbart, one of the ‘Net’s earlier bloggers who helped Arianna Huffington found Huffington Post, had falsely accused Occupy protesters of rape in a series of reports on his website.

Breitbart was an Aquarius with a Leo Moon (born at the Full Moon). He had an alignment of Jupiter, Chiron, Uranus and the lunar nodes on the Aries Point, which have been taking a lot of transits lately. His chart is an indication of how much influence you can have compared to how little substance you have. Apparently it was little enough that he felt he was brainwashed into liberalism by his professors and the “Democratic media complex” that does not exist.

In another casualty for the conservative cause, James Murdoch’s head was severed from News International, the UK division of News Corp that included the now-defunct News of the World as well as The Sun. James is the son of Rupert Murdoch and was until recently considered heir apparent to News International. The Murdoch feifdom has been caught up in a scandal involving its ‘reporters’ hacking into the phones of murder and terrorism victims, politicians and entertainment figures, as well as bribing police and government officials, manipulating investigations and lying to Parliament. There have been many arrests in this scandal, which we covered in a recent issue of Planet Waves.

Still Time to Apply to be a UAC Room Monitor

Until March 10, UAC is accepting positions for room monitors. Being a room monitor is a wonderful way to attend the conference, save money, and be eligible for a number of benefits.

Room Monitors can:

— Attend the UAC conference for only $150

— Apply for free tickets for the banquet and other entertainment through the Fortunate Ones Fund

— Enjoy lectures presented on many tracks throughout the conference

— Receive a gift of 18 MP3s

Don’t miss out on this fabulous opportunity to attend the conference at a minimal fee and get the maximum benefit!

Please email Charlotte Benson for more details and to apply as a UAC 2012 Room Monitor. Applications must be received by March 10, 2012. Charlotte will be happy to email additional, detailed information regarding your obligations and benefits, and to answer any questions you may have.

Introducing the Planet Waves 2012 Spring Report by Eric Francis

Spring 2012 is the wildest season I’ve ever seen in 18 years of doing around-the-clock astrology [listen to short audio preview here]. It fits the 2012 pattern of ‘everything, all at once’, even making that sound like an understatement. I am working on the report even as we edit this issue, and it’s coming out beautifully — every sign is coming through loud and clear and distinctive.

We have retrogrades of all three inner planets involved — Mercury, Venus and Mars. There is a rare Venus transit of the Sun — an exact conjunction of Venus and the Sun that you will be able to see if you have a clear view during daylight hours (you will need special equipment to protect your eyes). There are eclipses of the Sun and the Moon. And then, just four days after the Cancer solstice, we have the first exact square of Uranus and Pluto.

In honor of putting all this action to work for you, I’m preparing a special Spring Report for all 12 Sun signs and rising signs, as well as an introduction to the astrology that will be useful to everyone. This is a package of all 12 signs for one price. I’m designing it so that you can actually put many of the signs into use — for example, Virgo will be able to use the Gemini report as a career reading. Pisces can use Virgo’s report as a relationship reading, and so on. I give suggestions at the end of each sign, and will do a detailed description so you can get maximum use from this product.

We’re offering it at a special pre-sale price for current subscribers and customers — all 12 signs for $19.95. Once the report comes out, it will go on general sale for $24.95. The report will be ready by March 7, well before the spring equinox — I’m working on it now and it’s coming out amazing. Here is the link to pre-order. Thanks for signing up.

This section also includes the upcoming publishing schedule! The March monthly horoscope (long edition) was published Wednesday evening, Feb. 22. Inner Space Monthly was published Tuesday evening, Feb. 28. We will publish Genevieve Hathaway’s Moonshine Horoscope for March on the morning of Tuesday, March 6. The next Planet Waves monthly will be the April edition, which will be published on the evening of Wednesday, March 21. This will include coverage of the spring equinox. There will not be a regular Friday edition that week; Priya Kale will stand in for Eric Francis for the weekly horoscope of Friday, March 23.

Friday, March 2, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #893. | Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Mercury has just entered your sign, which illustrates a kind of awakening to something that should have been obvious. Yet you may soon decide that it wasn’t so obvious after all, or that what you have to give up is worth more than what you might have gained by making a decision. Other factors in your chart indicate that you may be more obsessed by hesitation than by the prospect of action. Yet no sooner will that become obvious than you become seized by the desire to be spontaneously, impetuously and boldly decisive, and do things that you might regret. I suggest you pause and consider what you actually want to do. While you’re doing this, give the concept of ‘sacrifice’ a good once-over. That does seem to be the sticking point. While you’re reflecting, I suggest you consider why you’re devoted to whatever you feel devoted to. Does it nourish you back in some way, or are you devoted for its own sake? Once you’ve sorted out these themes, it will be easier to make clear decisions.

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

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Maybe it’s my positive experience with Gestalt therapy speaking, but the notion of ‘unconscious’ has always seemed suspect to me. ‘I did that unconsciously’ or ‘that person has an unconscious motive’ sound more like denying consciousness than anything else. There does seem to be a level of information that at times percolates into the one to which we’re normally accustomed, such as remembering a dream that reveals something interesting. I suggest, however, that you’re fully responsible for knowing your motives and your goals, and that if there is any question or issue, it’s going to have a manifestation, for example, as some form of conflict or frustration. Another clue that something might be going on ‘beneath the surface’ is that you find yourself rationalizing, that is, making excuses for why something is a certain way, rather than investigating how it got to be that way. Yet none of this is beyond your ability to perceive it. Your mind is a light; I suggest you look directly at what it illuminates.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — You can safely let the tensions of the week go. It seems like people around you were feeling a bit revved up and expressive at the same time, and their reactions may have left you feeling some shade of insecure. Or rather, they may have affirmed certain pre-existing insecurities you’ve been experiencing, which in turn date back to old material. It’s strange when something someone says in the middle of your adult workday relates to some feeling you had when you were five years old, but it happens. There’s a significant relationship between what you have experienced in the past and what you’re experiencing today, though it’s here for a reason — so you can work it out and get yourself free from any snags that have persistently held you back. I will give you one clue from your chart — you don’t need to be popular to be successful. But you don’t need to be unpopular either. It would help immensely if you feel good in your skin.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Be on the lookout for news about your professional life for the next few days and indeed the next few weeks. You’re in an extended phase of developing both your career aspirations and your reputation. And now the immediate astrology is making contact with the longterm astrology and there is a synergistic effect developing. I have a few suggestions for how to make the most of this. One is consider your goals a work in progress. Second, focus on what you’re the most devoted to. That may mean what you do the most of (that’s one way to tell what you’re the most devoted to) or it may mean shifting your priorities a little so that you give some of your energy to something you want to do or create, and be persistent about that for a while. This may be something you gave up at a certain point in the past, and now want to reconnect with or devote yourself to. I suggest you consider some of your most persistent desires and make sure that they are getting some of the energy they deserve. Keep the flame alive; add the fuel a little at a time, and tend the fire around the clock.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — There’s no need to wrangle over a money issue. Your fiscal conservatism is at its most committed right now, to the point where I suggest you do what you can to avoid paranoia about money. At the same time, the values of others may seem extravagant lately when in fact they match your own values a lot more than you might recognize. I suggest you let key partners or loved ones have an influence on you that you can use to balance out any concerns you may have. However, this all goes deeper than money. You’re in an exceptionally beautiful moment to work out and let go of certain judgments about yourself that have contributed to some unhappiness in the past. These include various shades of being imperfect or not good enough. If you’re going to embark on a self-improvement campaign, you might start with cutting yourself some slack so you have actual space to make the changes that matter to you the most. You’re correct that impeccability is a meaningful agenda item, though how you get there matters.

Introducing the Planet Waves All Access Pass for 2012

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

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

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

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

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Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — People love you even when you don’t feel at your best. The only thing that really changes is your ability to receive love. Therefore, practice receiving. I know that it’s easy to make the argument that many people in our culture (and others) practice a self-centered and superficial approach to life. But what’s really going on at the core of that? I recognize that many people feel unworthy of love, but when you peel that back even just one layer, what’s in there? I would propose there’s something about the ability to receive. Yes, that’s directly related to one’s sense of worthiness. Though we might seem to be in chicken-and-egg territory here, I believe that when we’re cut off from emotional nutrients earlier in life, we might decide it’s our ‘fault’, whether that comes from child-logic or from having no other probable explanation available. Being open to receive from others who are happy to give to you would teach you something about how to treat yourself — and the time is right. As in right now.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — This is a complex time in your life and in particular, your relationships, though I would remind you that you’re the one in control. I say this because, sooner or later, everything you accept into your life comes down to a decision, and while you will definitely arrive at a series of decision points, I suggest you take them up on the soon side. That is to say, don’t wait until you think that something has gone too far. Run every circumstance through the filter of your actual boundaries whenever that situation arises, and make your adjustments incrementally rather than all at once, at the ‘end’. The key to avoiding being stressed out is never letting anything get too far. This will require you to stand up for yourself, which I assure you won’t tarnish your image as a reasonable person. To the contrary, certain people in your environment will feel reassured that you’re asserting yourself and your needs when you actually need to.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — I suggest you not push the health campaign, workout routines or dieting right now. What you need is balance. At the moment there’s no escaping the amount of work you have, but at least you’re into projects that you can use to bring out the best in you. At the moment to balance that you need the right amount of the right food, and just enough physical activity to let off any mental or physical tension you may be carrying. However, I suggest you not stretch too far in that direction; the pull will be too much for now. Rather, listen to the signs that your body is sending you; pay attention to the foods it’s asking you to eat and make sure that your physical space is clean and orderly. That will save a lot of energy and help your efficiency. I also suggest that you invest plenty of energy getting the opinions of others — and that you not take too much credit for what you get done. Point out the contributions of everyone else. Work in a spirit of service, and thank everyone for their shared effort and influence.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — The time is nigh for you to let go of your old ideas about your personhood — or anyone’s — being associated with relationship status. That’s the relic of another era, and for the most part it’s only served to the detriment of humanity. Relationship status is used for many purposes, ranging from ‘acceptability’ to certain communities to the appearance of decency, no matter what someone really does. It’s a way of signaling social status (married to the ‘right’ person) and as various dog whistles for unavailability, availability for surreptitious activity, and most of all, an acceptable form of relationship to our parents — no matter how many times they got divorced. This all amounts to a sham. You are acceptable for who you are, not for your status or who you’re with. The thing is, these programs run so deep they verge on impossible to see and unappealing to question. Sooner or later you will figure out that you are you and that your life is an experiment, and that’s likely to be sooner than you think.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Your feelings are loaded — and loaded with information. Over the next few weeks you may be making many discoveries, potentially involving a range of subjects including your family, your father’s family, certain misunderstood events of the past, your local community and your current living environment. I suggest, however, that you pause before you make any decisions based on any of that information. At this stage, once you decide something, you’re likely to discover something else that shifts or even radically alters your viewpoint. No information is final at this stage, and you have so much left to learn that I suggest you consider it an ongoing process that will last a while. I don’t know if you’re excited about any of this yet, but you’re in a dimension where one discovery will lead to another, and eventually you’ll be hooked on the process of learning and the experience of your perception changing. We both know you have a craving for history and the truth of what went on in the past; you now have access to one of the most interesting attics of your life, so take your time exploring.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — You have more power in someone’s life than you may think. Forget what the press release says, or how big of a shadow someone casts in your mind. Imagine you really do have influence. You have the power to say yes or no. You have the ability to grant or deny access. Indeed, you have the ability to take up space that might actually belong to someone else — physical space, or emotional. Are you feeling generous, or are you responding some other way? What is motivating you to act a certain way? The relationships are more involved than they may seem. There are several levels to what you’re feeling, and you may not be aware of some of them. Bear in mind that your choice to act a certain way may create a blind spot that prevents you from seeing the real effects of your choices or emotional posture. The deeper question I suggest you ask is, how do you want the situation to work out? Then act accordingly.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — Check any door you think is locked; it may be open and you may be able to walk right in. You may be welcome where you thought you were not, and with certain individuals you may have previously thought had no interest. However rather than trying to decide what anyone else wants, what matters the most is what you want. I suggest you make some decisions about that because those openings will work for you in any event — so you may as well go from your own inner guidance. In our moment of time, however, you could make an operetta called, “But What Do I Want?” mocking at least half the human race. It would have all kinds of song and dance numbers and the running joke would be that everyone really does know what they want, but they keep forgetting or they’re afraid to say anything about it or too paralyzed to take action. I suggest you stop making excuses and get clear with yourself, and start making some decisions.

Neptune in Pisces: A Watershed Event

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Dear Friend and Reader:

In 2008, Pluto entered Capricorn and within a matter of months, we saw the collapse of the banking system and a massive heist of public resources by different private entities. It was an event so perfectly described by Pluto in Capricorn (which lasts till 2024) that it was a little eerie. Many astrologers had been discussing the potential for various forms of systemic collapse under Pluto in Capricorn, and one happened immediately after the transit began.

The world’s first underwater presidential cabinet meeting, held by Mohammed Nasheed off Irufushi Island in the Maldives in October 2009. Image is screen shot from “The Island President,” a documentary about Nasheed and his quest to call attention to global warming. As ocean levels rise, the Maldives could become geographically extinct.

Then in April 2010 when slow-moving Chiron ingressed Pisces, within 24 hours, the BP oil platform explosion and spill happened, dumping millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for months (and the well may still be leaking). Once again, an outer planet changed signs and we saw an event that was strikingly similar to the astrology involved — Chiron, which can call attention to issues of wounding and healing, put all eyes on the ocean.

In March 2011 when Uranus made its ingress to Aries, within hours an earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, creating one of the top two worst nuclear disasters in history. Uranium, the primary fuel for nuclear reactors, is named after the planet Uranus, which has a volatile, even explosive quality at times. Aries is hot and fiery, and what happens close to the Aries Point (the first degree of Aries) can affect the world — and once again we had an effect that illustrated the astrology in a vivid way.

Astrologers are on notice: when slow-moving outer planets change signs, there may be an immediate effect. Pay attention.

Knowing that Neptune would be entering Pisces, I was on the lookout for a development at the beginning that would give us some clues about what might be up. I suspected that the rising of the oceans, involving global warming, would be an issue. Neptune is the planet of water, named for the god of the sea (and of earthquakes). Pisces is a big ocean. What happens when you put a lot of water in an ocean? The level rises — and that is exactly what’s happening due to the melting of the glaciers. It’s obvious that with Neptune in Pisces, we will be dealing with the reality and not the concept of global warming.

Former Maldives president Mohammed Nasheed after his underwater cabinet meeting in 2009. Image from “The Island President,” an upcoming documentary.

In a late edit to last week’s edition, which summarized the history of the past 14 years of Neptune in Aquarius, I mentioned that the global warming controversy was a kind of poster child for denial (Neptune) of science (Aquarius). An inconvenient truth that is convenient to deny, global warming may turn out to be the biggest scandal in the history of the world. Has anyone noticed that the biggest deniers are those who profit from doing so?

But not everyone has been in denial. At the head of the class has been the president of the Maldives, an island nation located just above sea level in the Indian Ocean. It’s the country with the lowest average elevation — 1.5 meters above sea level. One of the country’s outspoken politicians, Mohammed Nasheed, came home from exile in 2008 to be the first democratically elected leader of his country. Nearly 30 years of dictatorship ended with an authentic triumph for the people, and the inauguration of a progressive, intelligent president.

And Nasheed was breathing fire on the issue of global warming. The Maldives are so close to sea level that when the 2004 Indonesian earthquake and tsunami happened, most of the country (which consists of a group of islands) was submerged. That’s to say, most areas were flooded under one to three meters of water, a stark reminder of what is possible if ocean levels continue to rise.

When Nasheed took office in November 2008, he quickly brought global warming to the top of his agenda and became one of its most articulate spokesmen. He stated his intentions to have the country purchase land in India, Sri Lanka and Australia for its citizens to inhabit, saying, “We do not want to leave the Maldives, but we also do not want to be climate refugees living in tents for decades.” If the rising of the seas wasn’t stopped, his own country would become geographically extinct by 2100. He spoke at the United Nations, and he participated in a recent documentary, The Island President.

Among other methods of getting attention, in 2009 Nasheed held an underwater meeting of his cabinet in scuba gear to illustrate the point that his country was being swallowed by the ocean. (For astrology fans, this happened with many planets in Libra, and during the triple conjunction of Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune in Aquarius.)

Then on Tuesday, just four days after Neptune entered Pisces, Nasheed was forced to resign the presidency at gunpoint. He was ousted by allies of the old dictator, who apparently wanted some of their power back, or didn’t want to face prosecution. Nasheed had just ordered the arrest of a criminal court judge who was allegedly refusing to allow corruption cases against members of the old administration to proceed. That was used as an excuse for the military and police to force him out of office.

The Maldives are a nation consisting of about 1,200 islands, close to the equator in the Indian Ocean. They are on average 1.5 meters above sea level — the lowest country in the world. Image from “The Island President,” which comes out in March.

The judge who Nasheed had arrested “was the chief judge of the Criminal Court, which is one of the middle-ranking courts in the Maldives,” according to one of Nasheed’s aides, quoted on Democracy Now! “And the government had accused him of defending the former dictatorship of [Mohammed Abdul] Gayoom. There was a number of cases against former regime members for [inaudible] and corruption, and some involving hundreds of millions of dollars. And the government contended that this judge was essentially preventing those cases from ever reaching fruition.”

Yet the effect is that one of the few people in power speaking up about global warming and rising sea levels was taken out of commission. As of press time, an arrest warrant had been issued for him. Many fear that he will be imprisoned, and his adversaries have stated that’s their goal. Despite this, he led a street rally on Thursday. BBC has reported that there is no sign of the new government trying to carry out the arrest warrant.

Nasheed has more important plans, focused on the fate of the Earth. He used his presidency to cast the Maldives as a canary in the coal mine of global warming. Many areas of Manhattan, he’s pointed out, are only slightly higher above sea-level than his country.

And there are American scientists who agree with him. One of them is Malcolm Bowman, a professor of oceanography at SUNY Stony Brook, who said in an interview, “Looking at the city, with the setting sun behind the Williamsburg Bridge, it’s a sea of tranquility,” he said. “It’s hard to imagine the dangers lying ahead.”

Severe beach erosion in the Maldives has claimed substantial amounts of coastal land. Image from “The Island President.”

He told WNYC Radio in New York that as global warming brings higher temperatures and more violent storms, flooding in parts of the city could become as routine as the heavy snows of this winter. We could even have “flood days,” the way the city now has snow days. Higher sea levels will give severe storms much more water to funnel toward the city.

“We could expect the FDR Drive to be underwater,” he told the station, referring to Manhattan’s East Side Drive. “We could expect the water lapping around Wall Street,” he said. “We could see vital infrastructure, hospitals, sewage treatment plants, communication conduits all paralyzed by flooding with seawater, which is very corrosive.” He said the city could resemble Venice in 200 years.

How would the city deal with this? Possibilities include building enormous storm surge barriers like the kind used in the Netherlands, much of which is below sea-level. The Dutch have managed to hold back the ocean successfully for many years. Or, the city could pull back from vulnerable neighborhoods, moving them to higher ground and using low-lying areas as parks and buffer zones. But given real estate values, that seems unlikely. And with half of the world’s population living within 200 km of the shore, we would have to build a lot of dykes to protect even the areas that could be protected.

All the studies in the world may not convince world leaders to take action. It’s going to take actual events, and even then, many people are too despondent or corrupt to deal with a problem this complex. And even when the proof comes in the form of an event, it can take a generation or more to get the physical infrastructure in place, such as happened after the North Sea flood of 1953. This flood affected the Netherlands, Belgium, England and Scotland.

Official New York City map showing flood zones. This is an actual document, not speculative.

The flooding was caused by a high spring tide and a severe windstorm that caused a storm tide. Existing sea defenses were overwhelmed and many breached. (Appropriately enough, this happened during a Saturn-Neptune conjunction. Hurricanes Katrina and Rita happened during a Saturn-Neptune opposition, which is similar to the conjunction.)

In the Netherlands, where 9% of the country’s farmland was flooded and 1,836 people died, a flood defense system was put into place, but it wasn’t completed until 1998, nearly half a century later.

There is no doubt that Neptune is associated with floods and events involving the sea, and Neptune in Pisces certainly seems to be the image of a lot more seawater. The thing about Neptune is that it’s a slow acting influence, until the drop that spills the cup. The story of floods is always the story of what was not expected, but which was obviously coming.

One thing to keep in mind from an astrological perspective is that Chiron in Pisces is running vanguard of Neptune in Pisces. During its whole time in Pisces, Chiron will be a few years ahead of Neptune’s progress, finally leaving in 2019 (about six years before Neptune leaves Pisces). Chiron will bring sufficient warning-type events that we can have all the foresight we might need. Precaution is another story.

Speaking of Chiron, Nasheed was born in 1969 right at the end of the last run of Chiron through Pisces. His Chiron is placed in the very last degree of that sign, which is also the last degree of the zodiac. It’s theme is the self-created person.

During the Sixties, we learned that martyrdom makes the movement stronger. It was an era of assassinations: JFK, RFK, MLK, names so common we don’t even need to say them, representing people who set an indelible example of leadership. I trust that this time around, Nasheed can make his point without becoming a martyr. In less than a month, he’s about to become a movie star, as The Island President, the documentary about him, is released to select theaters.

Let’s not forget that mythic Neptune can be as placid as the ocean can be, he can be equally violent and wrathful if wronged. The tyrants who seized power might recall just a few years ago when their whole country was under water. Don’t dis Neptune, ’cause paybacks are hell.

Lovingly,

Additional research: Fe Bongolan, Dale O’Brien, Amanda Painter, Yasa Angelus Sereno, Carol van Strum and Lizanne Webb. If you would like to see the film “The Island President,” here is a schedule.

Venus, newly in Aries, made a conjunction to Uranus last night/early this morning, depending on your time zone. Today that energized Venus makes a trine to Juno in Sagittarius. Also overnight Thursday to Friday, Mercury conjoined centaur Nessus in Aquarius. Saturn, which recently stationed retrograde in the last degree of Libra, is trine Pallas Athene in the last degree of Aquarius. Pallas will leave Aquarius for Pisces minutes after midnight EST on Sunday, where it will conjoin Neptune Monday. Later today (Friday) the Moon ingresses Libra at 2:54 pm EST, where it will oppose Uranus and Venus in Aries. Sunday the Moon ingresses Scorpio at 5:01 pm EST. The Aquarius Sun sextiles Eris in Aries Friday, then tomorrow squares Sedna in Taurus. Sunday the Sun makes a conjunction to Nessus. Mercury, also in Aquarius, sextiles the Galactic Center in late Sagittarius Sunday, and then on Monday makes an air trine to Saturn.

In the upside-down world of the Republican presidential primary race, candidates have taken aim against President Obama’s initiative that requires health insurance companies to pay for women’s birth control. In particular, he’s even required that religious institutions that don’t approve of birth control still make it available to their employees, who might benefit from it. (You can read more about this in Venus on the Aries Point in the News on our daily blog.)

Santorum after winning the Republican primaries this week.

Here is something to consider. Republicans have come out waving the flag of the First Amendment, saying that mandating that a Catholic hospital provide access to contraception for its non-religious employees is a violation of freedom of religion.

Actually, they have it backwards: any employer bound by federal anti-discrimination laws attempting to compel its employees to follow a religion they don’t believe in would be the real violation of the First Amendment — known as compelled speech. This is is so obvious that it’s comical. Many have noticed that modern Republicanism is a religious crusade focused on sex (and little else), but few are pointing out how bizarre this is.

Meanwhile, the competition for ‘most surreal comment’ prize continues at an exciting pace. Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator and representative from Pennsylvania, recently surged from behind, winning Minnesota, Colorado and Missouri on Tuesday. Santorum is famous for a 2003 episode in which he ignited the ire of gay rights activists when he implied a comparison between same-sex marriage and marriage based on pedophilia or bestiality. In response, sex columnist Dan Savage held a contest to coin a definition of “santorum.” The winning entry was “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex,” which was the top Google return for his name until recently.

Following his three-state win, Santorum took the pulpit and claimed that making birth control available was a product of, “The intolerance of the left, the intolerance of the secular ideology. It is a — it is a religion unto itself. It is just not a biblical-based religion. And it is — it is the most intolerant, just like we saw from the days of the atheists in the Soviet Union. It is completely intolerant of dissent, because they fear dissent. Why? Because the dissent comes from folks who use reason, common sense and divine revelation, and they want no part of any of those things.”

Note, this is coming from someone who in this primary race compared gay sex to people having sex with dogs, and from the same man who rebuked a college student who’d suggested people should be able to marry who they want (with regard to same-sex couples) by asking, “So anybody can marry multiple people? What about three men?” Notice that social conservatives are ahead of the curve, getting ready for when people start to speak up in favor of polyamory. That’s why they define marriage as one man and one woman.

Oops, sorry — here’s the real picture of Rick Santorum, after winning a few Republican primary elections this week.

Meanwhile, multimillionaire candidate Mitt Romney is calling out established D.C. Republicans on their lavish ways with money.

“Republicans spent too much money, borrowed too much money, earmarked too much, and Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have to be held accountable. This is one of the reasons the Tea Party grew up, of course, is that people were unhappy about incumbents, people who had spent their careers in Washington borrowing, spending and earmarking. … And in this race, I’m the only guy that hasn’t spent time in Washington. And Senator Santorum and Speaker Gingrich, they are the very Republicans who acted like Democrats. And when Republicans act like Democrats, they lose.” Once again, right words in the wrong order: Democrats are the ones who have become Republicans, going along with illegal wars and tax cuts for billionaires, among other things.

Newt Gingrich raised the right’s latest favorite bogeyman and invoked the obscene false-flag tragedy of the 9/11 attacks in a transparent appeal to people’s fear in the name of creating manufacturing jobs. “You think about an Iranian nuclear weapon. You think about the dangers, to Cleveland or to Columbus or to Cincinnati or to New York. Remember what it felt like on 9/11 when 3,100 Americans were killed. Now imagine an attack where you add two zeros, and it’s 300,000 dead, maybe a half million wounded. This is a real danger. This is not science fiction. And that’s why I think it’s very important that we have the strongest-possible national security. And so, I wanted to come see how you manufacture, remind the news media and others that manufacturing in America can be the dominant system in the world.”

Apparently Newt is happy to roll up his sleeves and do some manufacturing of his own when it comes to paranoia and its exploitation. Ron Paul, on the other hand, seems to be waging a stealth campaign for the surreal comment prize, given the lack of juicy quotes form this week in a quick search. But maybe that has something to do with the fact that one of the super-PACs supporting him is headed by a supporter of the 9/11 Truth movement.

If you pay attention at all to the news (even if it’s just the articles in this issue), don’t be surprised if you find yourself empathizing with the world’s injustices — and how they manifest in your own life. When the Moon moves into Libra later today, it opposes Uranus, Venus and Ceres, which are within a few degrees of each other on the Aries Point. Activity on the Aries Point tends to raise our personal struggles onto the cultural stage in some way, and brings political issues close to home. In this case, aspects of women’s health, women’s rights, motherhood and the health of Mother Earth may all feel especially compelling to you — especially with Uranus charging up the batteries.

When the Moon shifts to Scorpio on Sunday, watch your feelings closely. You might find your sensual passions intensifying; it’s also possible that any lingering frustration with the injustices you noticed earlier in the weekend could grow into brooding. One release point could come in the form of physical/sexual pleasure. You can also explore how it feels to put your money where your mouth is — literally or figuratively — with regard to your values. Taking action even in small ways can move energy. Neptune and Chiron in early Pisces suggest creative solutions that move from imagination to tangible practice would be a great way to channel your emotions.

U.S. regulators on Thursday approved plans to build the first new nuclear power plant in more than 30 years, despite objections of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman, who cited safety concerns stemming from Japan’s 2011 Fukushima disaster, Reuters reported. The NRC voted 4-1 to allow Atlanta-based Southern Co to build and operate two new nuclear power reactors at its existing Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia. The units will cost Southern and partners about $14 billion and enter service as soon as 2016 and 2017. How many solar panels could $14 billion buy?

The approval was cold comfort for nuclear industry officials who have touted a “renaissance” that has failed to materialize, undercut by high costs and the cheapest natural gas prices in about a decade. No nuclear power plants have been licensed in the United States since the partial meltdown of the reactor core of the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania in 1979. After the accident, the NRC adopted more stringent safety standards, which caused construction costs for nuclear plants to skyrocket and stopped dozens of planned plants in their tracks.

Just one day after a federal appeals court ruled California’s ban on same-sex marriage (called Proposition 8, or Prop 8) to be unconstitutional, Washington State positioned itself to become the seventh state to legalize gay marriage following a vote in the State House. Washington State lawmakers approved marriage equality legislation on Wednesday — just a week after it was passed by the State Senate. Gov. Christine Gregoire is expected to sign the legislation into law next week. Meanwhile, this week’s ruling in California all but ensures that the same-sex marriage issue will go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Art of Astrological Storytelling with Eric Francis

Note to Potential Participants: This workshop will be at UAC 2012, but I will be doing a test run in New York City at 1 pm on Monday, Feb. 27, 2012, hosted by Nightlight Astrology. Write to nightlightastrology@gmail.com for more information.

Eric Francis.

How do you write astrology in a way that others understand you? First you must understand the chart, then express it in ways that don’t rely entirely on astrological references. Metaphors, descriptions of form, color and other sensory data, and most of all, a cohesive narrative will help you relate to your readers and clients. Eric Francis, founder and editor of Planet Waves, has been developing astrology content on the Internet since its nascent days. His articles present world events as personally relevant experiences, and reveal how and why readers can participate in seemingly global changes.

In this workshop he will cover how to write astrology for novices that also breaks new ground and makes sense to those advanced in the field. We will work on the details of description, of phrasing ideas in an understandable way, what you assume your reader knows, and how to tell when you have a good idea to work with. Eric’s central idea is that the best way to ‘market’ your website is with excellent content.

If you’re going to be at UAC, come a day early and catch this workshop on May 23. It’s part of a full-day presentation being taught by Eric with Donna Woodwell. Here is the official website.

Eric Francis is an investigative reporter, photojournalist and essayist who has been a practicing astrologer since 1995. He’s a specialist in new planetary discoveries. He has written for many magazines and newspapers in North America, Europe and Australia, as well as for Astrology.com, StarIQ.com, Rob Brezny’s Televisionary Oracle and many other astrology websites. He’s taught astrology in England, Canada and across the United States at many conferences and events.

Austin Kleon, artist and author of the books Steal Like An Artist and Newspaper Blackout, has taken a unique approach to horoscope creation. Using newspaper horoscopes, he blacks out the text except for a few choice words to create a new message.
It’s a technique he began playing with to create poems out of redacted newspaper stories in 2005, as a way to beat writer’s block. You can read all 12 of his February horoscopes here. What do you think — did he get your sign right?

We’ve received much gratifying feedback on the 2012 annual edition, which provides readings for all 12 signs and rising signs. Here are a few of the notes that you’ve sent in. Subscribers may still purchase all 12 signs at the discounted price (12 signs for the price of three) or just get your individual sign.

“This is like you took a page from my soul and wrote it out for me to look at and remember, when I get lost, that there are breadcrumbs to knowing again. This is my first impression, that this is beautiful and accurate and poignant for us Tauruses this year. Thank you, Eric!”

Leo. Painting by Carlos Cedillo.

“Ok were you a plant in my house when I was growing up? The Virgo audio and written parts (so far, I still have yet to listen to part 3) are EXACTLY what I have experienced. The section about sex is so true it is as though you have been privy to my innermost thoughts! How can you know these details and articulate them so well? Thank you SO much for doing what you do so perfectly. Like an intense and beautiful light in a dark room, your insights are a wonder and an inspiration.”

“I ride with great glee on the positive, hopeful, visionary challenge you present in your readings. You pour crystal-clear light into the chalice. Thank you. I have been so thirsty.”

“I just listened to Eric’s 2012 Taurus horoscope and it was AMAZING! I learned some crucial, new information about myself that is really vital to my self-healing. I am just constantly blown away not just by Eric’s ability, but also his compassion and sensitivity.”

“I am absolutely amazed and grateful at how deep you went and how accurately you managed to describe or tap into the essential Leo SELF. Some of which I have kept hidden from all except those closest to me… Much Gratitude, Appreciation and Love to you Eric.”

“This roadmap of a horoscope is phenomenal. You nailed it! I have become aware of the power I possess to change my world and use it on a daily basis. We are all powerful beings, we must acknowledge this power. And thanks to Eric’s prediction, I just might save the world (or at least my little corner of it — with lots of love to boot)!”

“I don’t know where to begin in saying thank you. Such a careful and thoughtful package of insights put together with love and craft and care. I am very grateful for this.”

The February monthly horoscope (long edition) was published Wednesday evening, Jan. 25. The long edition of the monthly horoscope is now on a new schedule — it will be the only Planet Waves mailing the week that it comes out, giving the Planet Waves team a chance to slow down a bit once a month. The next long edition monthly horoscope will be published the evening of Weds., Feb. 22. There was not an Inner Space monthly horoscope for February due to an overload of work during the production of the annual edition. The next Inner Space will be published the morning of Tuesday, Feb. 28.

Friday, Feb. 10, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #890. | Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — You may feel challenged by a situation that feels beyond your control — particularly one involving the opinion that others hold about you. Obviously what matters more is the opinion you have of yourself, but you’re especially vulnerable to outside influences right now. It’s the kind of setup where one thing could lead to another, therefore, when any one thing points in a direction that you don’t want to go, quickly make a decision to go another way. You seem to have a particular vulnerability where the opinions of coworkers are concerned, when you’re doing your best to mind your business and do your job. I would say do one better — make a point of doing your work in the most competent and creative way possible — and really shine despite what vibes you may feel are in the air or what anyone may think or say. Very simply, that whole head-trip is meaningless. The good part is that right now, many other elements of your life are beautifully meaningful.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — There may be some vivid contrasts in what you’re feeling and what others are perceiving about you. They’re not incompatible, but they are different enough that you need to account for any potential contrast. While on the one hand you may be creatively lit up, and have an abundance of good ideas, other factors suggest you want to be extraordinarily careful where communications are concerned, particularly where anyone in a position of authority is involved. What you say matters, and you cannot take it back. Along a similar line, the quality of any idea is only as good as your ability to express it or put it into action in a useful way. This could be a genuinely fortunate time in your life, when actual opportunities are abundant. But you can take no chances on anything other than careful, honest effort, and sincere gestures to cooperate within any group environment.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — As you’ve figured out by now, most spirituality has nothing to do with spirit and most religion has nothing to do with anything Divine. The substitute or the excuse is not the reality, though there are many who would — and do — confuse the matters. You cannot afford to be confused, though at the moment it could happen easily. The most likely entry point for misunderstanding is going to be false belief, so I suggest you subject what you hear and what others try to persuade you to an extra high level of verification. This would count for anything that you find is emotionally disturbing or where you get the sensation that you’re shutting down because you’ve encountered some information. That shutdown sensation may be precisely the clue you need to know that something is simply wrong. But doing nothing about it is not a useful option. At the very least, a clear decision is called for.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — This week’s Full Moon may still have you feeling like you just got off an entire afternoon on the teacup ride. Clearly, you’ve taken a few steps to renegotiate some of the more sensitive situations in your life, yet you likely figured out how much more you have to change. One particular situation where push came to shove contains a lot of good information for you, and I suggest you do some data mining and make the most of what you learn. There is something fundamental you can discern about your own nature and that of someone close to you. We may be talking about your relationship to a group. The truly important thing to focus on is how to make sure that your values, opinions and sense of presence do not take second place, or get swallowed by, some entity seemingly larger than yourself. Yet the way to distinguish yourself is not with how ‘different’ you are, but with the power and beauty of your gradually awakening sense of self-worth.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — Your relationships are in a delicate spot, and you can help yourself immensely by being the person who defuses any tension and lets any seeming insult roll off your back. This may not be easy, because you’re almost as edgy as certain people around you — almost but not exactly. This is all going to come down to communication, which means being a specialist in understanding everyone’s motives: certain individuals around you, certain dynamics as they manifest in a group, and of course keeping a pulse on your own inner currents. Here is the thing to remember — life is more flexible than you remember it being any time in the recent past. Opinions are subject to change, facts are subject to reinterpretation and any situation you may encounter has many negotiable points. What will make that flexibility available is creativity: that is, imagination, seeing the possibilities, and knowing that any problem has a solution waiting to be discovered or invented.

Introducing the Planet Waves All Access Pass for 2012

With the All Access Pass you’ll receive:

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

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

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — You would be wise to pull your punches over the next few days — that is to say, meet aggression with something other than aggression. This won’t be easy but it’s definitely possible. If something makes you angry, start by shifting perspectives and figure out where someone is coming from. Merely empathizing with them will have a healing effect from the outset of the discussion or encounter. You will then be less inclined to think or act in a way that is self-judgmental — which is one of the best ways to defuse tense situations. You are the one who is dealing with the inner-violence dynamic. The person you’re connecting with is working through a mix of an identity crisis and self-deception. Therefore, be honest with yourself, listen with care, and set the example that there’s another way of looking at the world. Once you actually observe and acknowledge that, the whole relationship will shift.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Mars retrograde (now through April 13) is about you turning a corner in your relationship to fear. The thing about fear is that it seems so real, yet it so rarely works out to be true. Have you ever noticed that? Here is the thing about fear that is true, in my experience: it points to an energy source. What could be creative potential is converted into something, heavily tinged by the negative elements of the imagination, and something ‘unreal’ is created. The objective your charts seem to be describing is learning how to convert fear back into something creative. This would start first with feeling the fear or inner tension, acknowledging the inherently neutral nature of energy. Then notice how you color it one way or the other; how you make it into whatever it is. Though it’s emotionally difficult, stay with the feeling a little longer than you might otherwise, so you can get to the good stuff.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — One theme of this season is discerning what you think from what is true. Thoughts are powerful in that they have the power to subsume the mind. Whether you believe in ‘manifestation’, thoughts are creative, and they can also be destructive. It’s not a coincidence that the most destructive ones are those that are not true, by which I mean, the ones that are based on fear, attack or have no basis in verifiable reality. Yet one challenge you face is discerning those thoughts from what is real for you. The easiest way to tell the difference is going to be by the results. What leads to a creative outcome was a creative thought; what leads to conflict was a destructive or deceptive thought. To use this method of discernment you’ll need to track your mental process, through the actions it leads to, and then observe what happens. Think of this as observing yourself, which is a vital skill any time, but especially with Mars traveling retrograde for the next few months.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — You need to apply effort, but a certain kind that to you might feel passive. The idea is to slip into the flow, and know when you’re there. You’re in one of the richest and most abundant creative moments for many moons — though this also has a potentially disruptive quality if you don’t ride the tiger just right. This is why I am suggesting a move-with-the-energy, no-resistance approach to what you have to do, and for engaging with the thoughts and ideas that pass through you. Definitely keep a notebook, and remember that not everything is worth acting on — but nearly everything will be worth considering, and some will be worth developing. Ideas for career development may have to wait, but it’s never too early to prepare with knowledge, strategies and most meaningfully, with a vision for what you want to do. Remember, visions develop in layers, and are combined of adding what you want and removing what you don’t want.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — I suggest you be cautious of any ideas that equate money to power. They are likely to be turned against you. You can think of money as creative potential or energy, but that is different than this thing we call power, as in the power to get people to do things, or to motivate you to action. If you’re looking for motives or inspiration, find more imaginative ones. You might think in terms of what inspires people to cooperate toward a creative goal, or any goal, for that matter. These days it seems that ideas have more energy than cash when it comes to focusing the energy of groups, and there’s certainly no shortage of those right now. I would note that there is a bold, new quality to what is coming through, which may seem to challenge your preference for what is tried and true. Yet it’s a fact that time marches on, and you’ve been trying to light the fires of progress for a long time.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — One of the defining characteristics of our moment is the refusal to think in terms of consequences. Notably, this is happening at a time when a lot of consequences of the past are emerging for everyone to notice. An aspect between the Sun in your birth sign and a small, potent object called Nessus, are a reminder to think your plans and desires through. Consciously consider a diversity of what-ifs. This is not for the sake of ‘worry’ but rather for the sake of considering your options based on the potential of what they might create. At the same time you’re doing this, you may be experiencing a boomerang effect of things that you initiated in the past and to which you did not devote this consideration. Now is the time to make the necessary corrections, one at a time, as you become aware of what needs to be done. Note that some will require going through layers to get to the core of the matter.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — There seem to be many hidden factors at work in your life, though the most significant, useful and creatively rich are the ones you can see, feel and hear. Certain factors in the astrology suggest that you have a line into the unseen aspects of your life, which you can navigate intuitively. Therefore, use your senses. Look and listen for opportunities, both to express yourself and to exchange with others. Most of all, feel what you’ve got: notice your resources, your potential and how much freedom you actually have to make choices. The truth is that many options are open, and your freedom is available to the extent that you can mix potential with focusing power. To get that equation right, it’s necessary to work both sides, and I suggest you experiment with one and then the other till you can put them both together. If you keep your eyes open and your mind on your priorities, that ability will come sooner rather than later.