Tag Archives: Royal Wedding

Shooting the Mirror

What are we gonna do now? / Taking off his turban, they said, is this man a Jew?
‘Cos working for the clampdown / They put up a poster saying we earn more than you!
When we’re working for the clampdown / We will teach our twisted speech
To the young believers / We will train our blue-eyed men / To be young believers
— The Clash – Clampdown

Dear Friend and Reader:

This has become a Beltane infused with death. I learned recently that some cultures (such as in the Eastern Orthodox faiths) practice Days of the Dead-type rituals right after Easter. I had no idea till someone told me a few days ago. But that is a small palliative to seeing mobs of young people dancing in the streets, celebrating a murder. In a glance, I understood why we don’t see those same young people at peace rallies.

Young people sing in the streets celebrating the death of Osama bin Laden, the night of May 1, 2011. Photo by Eric Francis.

Friday morning we witnessed something a little more in the spirit of the season — the royal wedding. It is interesting that the future king of England was married within mere days of the purported slaying of our worst enemy. Are we being told that the royal house is in order, and that empire is on the rise again? Though some may see this as evidence that the military power of the West is now in capable hands, it is disturbing that Osama bin Laden was, in essence, executed without a trial. Being a democratic nation, that’s the thing that’s supposed to set us apart from all the other kinds of nations — that someone is innocent till proven guilty. I know a lot of people might think that’s just ridiculous. But I would ask why, when fair, transparent criminal procedure was part of why the American Revolution was fought?

For the sake of this article, I will set aside any possible questions about whether it was actually him; I can tell you that I don’t personally know, and the U.S. government generally does not win awards for its impeccability with truth. Either way, this is an important moment. Bin Laden’s purported death turns a chapter in the history of the Sept. 11 incident and the history of the seemingly endless War on Terror. That phrase has always irritated me. It’s possible to address terrorism with a war (though not particularly effective), but one cannot wage war on an emotion. Presumably we are supposed to be less afraid now that this has happened, though many people feel we’ve kicked a hornet’s nest.

Since we’re on the topic of Sept. 11, 2001, let’s consider some recent astrology related to that incident.

Back in October, the Libra New Moon occurred exactly in the ascendant of the main Sept. 11 chart — what I call the North Tower chart — and that, to me, said something was brewing with the issue. The chart of the world’s most famous terrorist attack was stirring back to life. At the time, I covered this in an article called History, Turning on a Phrase, in which I laid out some of the serious problems with the prevailing theory of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The ascendant of the North Tower chart contains the planet Mercury — it is rising precisely, to the degree, like the moment of the Sun coming up over the ocean, the moment that Flight 11 was crashed into the World Trade Center. Last October’s Libra New Moon was conjunct both Mercury and the ascendant of the North Tower chart. By conjunct, I mean to the exact degree, something that will not happen again for decades. Mercury in that chart describes the ‘secret enemy’, that is, a suspect for whoever was behind the attacks and the conspiracy. The ascendant or rising degree is the face of the chart — and the face became that of Osama bin Laden.

Mercury rising in the chart for the North Tower strike. Mercury is precisely in the degree of the ascendant, which happens for about four minutes out of every 24 hours. The little planet below it in Scorpio is Pholus, shorthand for, “An unstoppable flow of cash is about to come loose.” And given that the placement is in Scorpio, that would count for death as well. Full chart here. You can read about the chart in this article.

Bin Laden was sold to the global public in cinematic terms as the personification of evil, the prince of darkness, and the cryptic embodiment of every radical Islamist who ‘hates our way of life’. He was described as the sinister, insidious mastermind, living out of a cave, plotting against all we love so dearly. He was alternately portrayed as an economist, a billionaire and the iconic ‘sand nigger’, an appalling phrase that surfaced during the first Bush War in 1990-91 to describe anyone in a turban. Bin Laden’s face started showing up on bumper stickers, buttons and novelty wanted posters with crosshairs — this, despite the fact that there was never enough evidence to list the Sept. 11 attacks as among the reasons he was wanted by the FBI. Take a look: on his real wanted poster, he’s not wanted for 9/11.

There had been no investigation, no arrests and no trial — but the word was out on the streets of New York City even as office paper from the towers was still drifting in the breeze that Osama bin Laden was the guy. Hardly anyone in the public knew who he was. His name had popped up in the news from time to time, just like lots of other Arab terrorists, but his was not exactly a household word — that is, until the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. Then, in an hour, he became an archetype.

The peace dividend that many had hoped would come at the end of the Cold War went up in the smoke of the World Trade Center, and so did what was left of the federal budget (or more accurately, credit card). And, we were told — and readily believed — it was all because of one bad guy, Osama bin Laden.

The peace dividend wasn’t the only thing that went up in the smoke. Raising Osama bin Laden to the level of a religious icon, the citizens of the United States bowed down to fear, allowed their privacy to be taken from them, and tacitly consented to global war, presumably without end. In her broadcast Monday night, Rachel Maddow summed up the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks beautifully:

Ten years ago, before 9/11, the U.S. defense budget was half the size that it is now. Ten years ago, before 9/11, there was no Department of Homeland Security. Had someone suggested that there ought to be one, you probably would have teased them for using a weird word like homeland.

Ten years ago before 9/11, you walked through a metal detector to get on an airplane, sure, but this was the kind of thing you’d only do maybe on a third date [visual of full body X-ray at airport security]. Sometimes on your flight, even the pilots would keep the cockpit door open and you could see them work and you could see the world fly by through their windshield if you peered down the aisle.

Rachel during Monday’s broadcast. Image courtesy of MSNBC.

Before 9/11, the U.S. had troops based in Saudi Arabia. Before 9/11, the U.S. legal history of torture was of our government prosecuting people for that. Wartime was no excuse. Before 9/11, the National Security Agency having access to everybody’s emails and phone calls and texts and bank records and everything would have been a scandal.

Before 9/11, we did not have a new militarized intelligence bureaucracy that The Washington Post described as an additional 1,271 government organizations, 1,931 private companies and an estimated 854,000 people holding top-secret security clearances.

Before 9/11, no one in politics and private life talked about Article III Courts called for under the Constitution because those were just what courts were. We didn’t have anything but Article III courts. Why would we?

Before 9/11, we didn’t drop bombs using flying robots.

Before 9/11, we had not lost 3,000 people in Lower Manhattan and at the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

Before 9/11, we did not have 2.2 million Americans who are Iraq and Afghanistan veterans and we did not have the national promise to do right by them as a country in respecting their service. Before 9/11, we had not lost more than 6,000 of those veterans in our post-9/11 wars before U.S. forces finally found and killed Osama bin Laden.

If you were a kid when 9/11 happened, it may be hard to imagine our country without all of these things in place. If you were an adult when 9/11 happened, you probably never could have believed this is how we would have chosen to spend the decade after.

These are some serious consequences of the events that spanned a few hours in the history of a nation. The verified body count in Afghanistan and Iraq today stands at 110,000 civilian deaths; because not every death is accounted for, it is really much higher, and that does not include the many injured. Every one of those civilian deaths comes with a family that has lost a loved one. Thousands of people have been orphaned and millions have been reduced to refugees, displaced and fleeing across borders.

Site of impact where the Pentagon was allegedly struck by an airplane, an agonizing 59 minutes after the World Trade Center was hit. How is that even possible? Meanwhile, most people point out the obvious lack of an airplane or damage in the shape of one. But how did the debris go in the direction that the plane was supposedly coming from? The wall stood upright for about half an hour before it fell outward. Photo by Dept. of Defense.

Yet even Rachel Maddow, who I consider the best mainstream broadcaster in the business, possibly in the history of commercial television, never questions the orthodoxy of Osama bin Laden being the guy behind Sept. 11. She never mentions there is a problem, or even a potential problem, with the facts. I wait for her to do so in faithful anticipation. Indeed, the most left-leaning journalists in the mainstream media, and many in the alternative media (in addition to everyone else), swallow whole the notion that bin Laden did it; that the conspiracy was his alone.

There is a silent presumption; it is accepted, unquestioned, as religious orthodoxy. In what seems to be a perpetual, unshakable consensus of the working media, nobody is allowed to so much as inquire what is wrong with the official story.

That is the one thing that Jon Stewart has in common with Glenn Beck; that Barack Obama has in common with Dick Cheney; that Rachel Maddow has in common with Rush Limbaugh.

Whether you’re writing in The Washington Post or The Washington Times, or The New York Post or The New York Times, you swallow this ‘truth’ of the official 9/11 story like a Catholic swallows the host: without chewing, and without question. Even Amy Goodman refuses to give airtime to what has become known as the 9/11 Truth Movement: the people demanding to know what really happened that day. And that, I think, is amazing, given the significant questions that exist (including many raised by architects and engineers), and given how many Americans don’t trust the official story.

Among other surveys, a Scripps-Howard poll found that, “Thirty-six percent of respondents overall said it is ‘very likely’ or ‘somewhat likely’ that federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them ‘because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East’.”

I understand the lack of trust that the public feels. We all know that a lot of people have made princely sums of money on the War on Terror, and that alone is reason to be suspect. We know that since Watergate (a far-reaching crime that has been reduced to a word), people have struggled, with good reason, to trust the government. George W. Bush ignoring the warning in the CIA’s presidential daily briefing from Aug. 6, 2001 looks a lot like complicity.

World Trade Center 7, or the Salomon Brothers building, shortly before it collapsed in its footprint at 5:21 pm on Sept. 11, 2001. Most people don’t know that a third tower of the Trade Center complex even existed, much less that it fell down that day. Photographer unknown.

I also understand the issue that journalists face. Nobody in a prominent position wants to be accused of being a conspiracy theorist, or of sympathizing with them. They don’t want to seem flaky, especially if they go out on limbs other ways (and many brave journalists do). Nobody with a decent job wants to cash in all of their credibility raising the issue, nor do they want to discover one day that their brakes failed at 70 mph.

Plus, there are no definitive answers; the story has no payoff. When you question why, for example, Tower 7 of the World Trade Center fell down on its footprint on the afternoon of Sept. 11, having been hit by no airplane, there is only a question. And that question has some very serious implications. It’s better not to open that can of worms — or not to be the one who tries. I give Michael Moore a lot of credit for raising some of the right questions in Fahrenheit 911.

Yet there is something else going on, something deeper than politics. On the most superficial level, everyone seems to be buying into the old story of good and evil. There is a game of victim consciousness — and I don’t mean the actual victims of whatever happened on Sept. 11; I mean how victimization became a cultural event. Victimization requires a perpetrator. If you have an emotional need to accept that your country is the symbol of all that is good, and you secretly know that it’s not, then you have to see that evil someplace else. Jungian analysts don’t think this is a conscious process — but we’ve all seen it and felt it, and we often know when we’re doing it. It’s just when the whole society gets into the act, it’s sometimes really hard to tell.

Mercury and Saturn, Trading Places

It’s easy to see the issues that became the 9/11 Truth Movement in the chart for the North Tower. By that, I mean in this chart we see the obvious potential for the incident being an inside job or a collaboration between the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’. It would not be the first time in history that this has happened. Treason is against the law because it exists.

There is a rule in astrology called mutual reception. Planets that occupy one another’s signs can also be viewed as swapping places. Mercury (the secret enemy) is in Libra (a sign co-ruled by Saturn), and it trades places with Saturn, the planet of government, which is in Gemini (a sign Mercury rules).

Not a bad guy inherently, but in the Sept. 11 chart, Saturn represents the shadow government (basically, the Cheney/Rove administration as opposed to the Bush administration). Photo from Cassini Mission/APOD.

Said directly, Saturn in Gemini is in reception to Mercury in Libra. The two function as one entity, cycling energy between them as one system. They are also in a perfect trine aspect — an aspect of cooperation that Martha Lang-Wescott once said (long before 9/11) translated to “you lie and I’ll swear to it.”

What does that look like in real life? We could mention that bin Laden starts his career as a CIA operative, fighting against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Pakistan was the intermediary between him and the United States. It is no surprise that he was found living in the midst of Pakistan’s military elite, half a mile from a military academy.

Or we could remember that George H. W. Bush was sitting at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel with Osama bin Laden’s brother Shafiq the morning of Sept. 11, watching the smoke rise from the Pentagon. This is not a novel; it is reality. They were part of a meeting of the Carlyle Group, the Bush family business, which is essentially an investment firm and holding company that (among other things) develops military contracting firms. Shafiq was an investor in the Carlyle Group, which profited from the wars that followed. If that’s a coincidence, it’s a really weird one.

Or we could remember that his son, George W. Bush, had a long relationship with the Taliban going back at least to when he was governor of Texas — the very government that Osama bin Laden personally financed. That relationship included an energy deal with Enron requiring the Taliban’s cooperation that was no longer forthcoming in 2001. When you research this, the connections between Enron, the Taliban and Bush are so well documented as to be horrifying.

We could also consider that when we had Osama bin Laden all but captured in December 2001, the United States let him go. To me it seemed obvious: we could not have a war without an enemy. Were he to be killed or captured, he would be useless. When alive, he gave the War on Terror brand an identity. Eliminating him would have been like McDonald’s capturing Ronald McDonald.

When you add this to all of the unaccounted-for issues of Sept. 11, starting with the blatantly ignored early warning on Aug. 6, or the fact that the U.S. government was flying NORAD exercises on that day and many federal officials did not know whether the four hijackings were part of the game, or that nobody is admitting that WTC 7 was demolished (nor did the 9/11 Commission even inquire as to how it fell down) it is clear that one guy did not mastermind 9/11.

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden.

Meanwhile, we have rarely heard much of what Osama bin Laden had to say for himself. Mostly, we know his face, which is an unusual face for a terrorist because his gaze always seems balanced, present and soulful. In his lengthy obituary Monday, The New York Times did him the service of quoting a 1997 interview he gave to CNN.

The United States, he said, wants to “occupy our countries, steal our resources, impose agents on us to rule us and then wants us to agree to all this. If we refuse to do so, it says we are terrorists. When Palestinian children throw stones against the Israeli occupation, the U.S. says they are terrorists. Whereas when Israel bombed the United Nations building in Lebanon while it was full of children and women, the U.S. stopped any plan to condemn Israel. At the same time that they condemn any Muslim who calls for his rights, they receive the top official of the Irish Republican Army at the White House as a political leader. Wherever we look, we find the U.S. as the leader of terrorism and crime in the world.”

I agree with his analysis. It is actually much worse than he’s saying. I understood that analysis (mainly from reading Noam Chomsky and long talks with my friend Steve) well before I ever heard the name Osama bin Laden. When you start listing the holocausts that the United States has sponsored, whether in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Central America, East Timor, Cambodia, or Vietnam — not to mention the universe of agony and humiliation we have loosed upon the Arab world — you understand better what he’s saying. It starts to look pretty suspicious that we personify evil in this one person, without admitting what our own nation does.

This process is psychological, it has a name, and the name is projection.

Unlike bin Laden, I don’t think the appropriate response is to fight back against these injustices with guns and bombs — that happens to violate my religious and ethical views, and I don’t think it will work. Admittedly I’m not the one getting shot at. I also oppose the death penalty under all circumstances, as do many families of murder victims. But in a world where we pay for children to play video games that involve shooting and blowing up others, and murdering prostitutes (to wit, Grand Theft Auto), and where most of our tax dollars go to bombs, you can hardly blame bin Laden for taking this approach. I am not saying it is ethical or lawful. I am saying it is logical.

What we are doing is, in essence, blaming him for our own actions. And I do mean that literally. Plenty happened on Sept. 11, 2001 that Osama bin Laden could not have done himself — at least not without a lot of help from people with keys to the World Trade Center.

The Projection of Shadow

Psychology has a way to help us past our madness, both individual and cultural. The thing is, this requires the desire to mature, awareness, the willingness to admit one’s mistakes, and some sustained effort.

Carl Gustav Jung, in 1922.

A psychologist and scholar named Carl Jung explained projection to us. Here is how he described it; his language is a bit formal. “Projection means the expulsion of a subjective content into an object; it is the opposite of introjection. Accordingly, it is a process of dissimilation, by which a subjective content becomes alienated from the subject and is, so to speak, embodied in the object. The subject gets rid of painful, incompatible contents by projecting them.”

I’ll state this again, with my elaborations on his ideas [in brackets].

“Projection means the expulsion of a subjective content [what is in one’s own mind, such as a motive] into an object [into something or someone outside oneself]; it is the opposite of introjection [absorbing the properties of something or someone external]. Accordingly, it is a process of dissimilation [making oneself different from], by which a subjective content [a thought or feeling in your mind] becomes alienated from the subject [oneself] and is, so to speak, embodied in the object [something or someone else]. The subject gets rid of painful, incompatible contents by projecting them.”

Our view of the U S of A as being this great nation that does only good deeds and always spreads democracy is not compatible with the nation that bombs villages with napalm — jellied gasoline dropped burning from airplanes that sticks to human skin, which was used widely in Vietnam. That is not acceptable behavior for our freedom-loving country, so we have to project it onto an evil-doer.

This is largely about relief, but it’s also about protecting our self-image and our pride. The dark or cruel side of our existence — all the people we have killed, starting with the American natives our young nation exterminated, the tens of millions of African slaves we imported — exists as shadow material that we put onto others.

It works on a deeply personal level with individual leaders. Jung explains, “The projection of the personal shadow generally falls on persons of the same sex. On a collective level, it gives rise to war, scapegoating and confrontations between political parties.”

Or, as an author named Paul Levy put it, “Shadow projection is itself the unmediated expression, revelation and playing out of the shadow. Shadow projection, the process in which we ‘demonize’ our enemies, entrancing ourselves into believing that ‘they’ are inhumane monsters who need to be destroyed, is the underlying psychological process which, when collectively mobilized, is the high-octane fuel which feeds the human activity of war.”

Photo by Eric Francis – Book of Blue, New York.

Levy continues, “Trying to kill our shadow as it appears in the outer world is itself the embodied reflection of our original inner act of splitting off from, projecting out and trying to destroy the dark part of ourselves, which is the impulse at the very root of shadow projection in the first place. In other words, our present-moment ‘inner’ activity of projecting the shadow ‘outside’ of ourselves is being dreamed up and played out in the seemingly ‘external’ world. The outer world is the canvas upon which our inner process embodies, or incarnates itself. We are literally acting out on the world stage our very inner process of disassociating from, projecting out, and trying to destroy our own darkness (emphasis added).”

We do this at our own peril. We not only create pain, which makes more guilt and thus more shadow to project; we are consuming our national resources in an existence of nonstop war. We burn creative energy on conflict, which subtracts it from loving and creating and building and cooperating.

Putting a bullet through Osama bin Laden’s head is just more projection. Everyone is acting as if this, too, will have no consequences.

I have a good friend who’s a truly perceptive psychologist. Her name is Christine Farber. Watching young people dancing in the streets Sunday night, I was so disturbed that I wrote to her to ask her what she thought was going on. I noticed something sexual in the vibes of these people gloating in the death of Osama bin Laden. It seemed like they finally had been given permission to show a little passion; not be so damned cool.

Christine replied:

My 20-year-old nephew is now planning to have Sunday’s date tattooed somewhere on his body; he informed me that he clapped and screamed and danced when he heard the news Sunday night. What are these responses about, at their core? You mention sex; I’m sure you’re on to something, and I’m looking forward to reading your thoughts about this on Friday.

I think about Eros and power and vulnerability and compassion and healing. I mean Eros in the sense of how we rise to meet the world, and what inspires us to do so. We rise differently if we have experienced traveling into our vulnerability — really being there — rather than fleeing from it. Your own writings, especially Book of Blue, describe this experience and the healing and compassion and empowerment that come with it.

Fleeing from vulnerability can still allow for certain expressions of power, that of power over something, which is where I think most of our world is on this issue. Many people felt vicariously powerful hearing the news of BL’s death. I received the following text from someone the next day: “Great for America. Shows the world that no matter what it takes, we’ll get ya!” I heard this same sentiment expressed over and over, and it I saw it in the faces of those chanting “USA” at ballgames, in streets, etc. It’s as though folks were waiting, perhaps desperately, for something to inspire them to rise up to meet the world with passion. Waiting for that something that could allow them to feel powerful. And waiting for something that would help them to feel connected to something larger than themselves (in this case, their country).

If, as a country, we did a little more hanging out with vulnerability — traveling downward, deeply into ourselves; being with those hidden hurts and desires and vulnerabilities — then I think the response to this event would have looked different, very different. Both individual and collective Eros would have other outlets, inspirations, and manifestations. We’d be more able to see through the illusions of violence. We could forgive.

What I find most striking is that people are craving power (which could be fulfilled through empowerment rather than power-over) and connection and inspiration. I like to believe that the jubilation comes from experiencing this — i.e., fulfillment of the more archetypal cravings underlying the experience, even if this fulfillment is short-lived, backward, skewed, and otherwise disturbing. Am I being too optimistic?

Personally, I don’t think so.

Yours & truly,

Additional Research: Mandy Hall, Eileen Mahood-Jose, Amanda Painter.

Light Bridge: The 25-Year Span by Eric Francis is the story of irrevocable change told through the lens of astrology, history and self-awareness. This is a carefully selected set of articles and essays by Eric written since 1987, which take you through the transition of the millennium into 2012. The essays are a continuing meditation on the experience of confronting global changes from long before anyone was certain they would really happen. It begins in a spiritual community in 1987 and comes to the present day, including a look at the astrology of the 2012-2015 era. Included are Eric’s best essays on sweeping world changes, relationships and maintaining some sense of one’s inner life in the midst of it all. The book, available as a printable PDF, is 174 pages and is illustrated by Carol McCloud. It’s just $14.95. It’s the perfect companion to Light Bridge, the 2011 annual edition of Planet Waves. Purchase your copy here.

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, May 6, 2011, #858 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — You now have access to parts of your psyche that are so different from who you usually consider yourself to be, that you may feel compelled to reconsider your identity from top to bottom. If your mind is alert and alive, these things happen from time to time; the current theme is how you relate to your feminine side. Until now you may not have fully taken ownership of this aspect of yourself — but then, you may have never associated it with the kind of creativity and passion that you can tap into right now. If there’s a part of you that’s feeling overwhelmed or intimidated, this might be the spot to focus on; to tap into and access some unusual ideas or strength. Even if you do nothing but observe yourself, you will notice something truly different over the next few days, and that something different points to a new source of wisdom. Here is the thing: you are an Aries and this astrology is happening in your sign. You make your awareness real by acting on it.

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

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — What seems to be a hidden matter or cause is not so hidden at all. In fact, it’s everywhere you look. You’re not sleeping, so what transpires in your life follows the logic of the waking world and not a dream. For the conscious, denial is not an option, and besides, nothing happening in your charts suggests you have something to deny — except for one thing. You seem to be struggling to come to terms with fear. Fear comes in response to what you think of as ‘the unknown’. There seems to be so much, but I assure you, it’s not so unknown. You merely need to look at your life and collect evidence of what is so. I suggest you consider strongly what you think of as your potential, including your unexpressed talents. What is your reasoning process as regards these sources of energy, pleasure and abundance? What do you tell yourself, when it comes to your ideas about your own development and growth? Check your logic.

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

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Think of all the times you felt excluded: too special to fit in, too ordinary to fit in, too smart to fit in. Then in some odd way you emerged as a leader. Remember all the times you felt insecure, only to discover that you were really the dependable one, in possession of some actual confidence. There is something to be said for this approach to life; it’s a way to cultivate modesty, and you’ve used it as a way to focus your objectivity. It’s also a form of camouflage. But let’s consider something else. Imagine you enter the situations you encounter without making any of those assumptions. Neither do you assume you’re better in any way; but let’s start by removing any possibility of a handicap. Let’s start assuming you have a leadership role; that you know your mind is the most creative one around; and that your intellect has a mobile quality that allows you to see above, beneath and around every situation. Use what you’ve got, kid. And don’t hide it.

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

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — There is something about your professional aspirations, or your potential, that is truly unusual — and now is the time to put that where the whole world can see it. Stay visible; make sure people know your accomplishments. Be absolutely real, and forget all the ways you think you’ve failed, or haven’t lived up, or have taken too long to get where you’re going. Tell yourself the other side of the story. You dare. You persist, even when you have your doubts. You may need proof to believe you’re an innovator, but let me speak for your astrology. You are one, and that quality is emerging from you at its strongest (probably ever) in these very days and weeks of your life. One factor of success of any kind is thinking of yourself as that successful person. If you can identify with the notion of achievement, or of yourself as a person who is talented and accomplished, you can be that person. Give it a try.

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

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — It’s time to set one new goal. You may have more; but pick the most important one, and pick a timeframe wherein you want to make it happen. I suggest giving yourself a little more time than you think; perhaps double what you think would be a best-case scenario, so you have space to get your work done. Then break down the steps to making it happen, and go for it — one meticulous step at a time. Remember that step one is the vision. It’s knowing what you intend or desire to create, and then putting the full focus of your mind behind it. This is partly an exercise in how it’s possible to accomplish anything at all, so remember the steps you took on the way to this particular project, because you’ll need them for the next. Now is the time to create and refine your method, because you will get to use it over and over again during the next few months.

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

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — Now is the time to consider your investments — and any debts you may have — in a new way. Debts, even small ones, can be a significant mental burden for many people, equivalent to the financial burden. It’s the idea of owing money that becomes as difficult as any other part, and that has a way of taking over one’s identity. I suggest devising a way of thinking of any money you owe as something other than who you are. On the other side of the ledger are your investments. What have you put your energy into the past few years? What commitments have you made, and what agreements are you in? Looked at rationally, are you getting a sufficient return on your investments? In what form does that return arrive? There seems to be a question, because your charts speak of both a drive to do something innovative, and a longing for freedom. As you shift your identity from what you owe to what you give, you will get a more authentic idea of who you are.

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

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — For all you’ve been confronted with lately — and there is a lot — you know where your true loyalties are. Remember them. Your charts speak of many options open, many possibilities, new horizons and a few disruptions. While you’re in the midst of navigating all of this, you’re figuring out what means the most to you, and why. It’s excellent to have a solid feeling about at least one thing. Lest you think you should have it about everything, imagine what it would be like to have no solid ground at all, nobody you can trust, no assurance that there is someone who truly values you. There are plenty of people who have no idea what any of this feels like, or it’s been so long they’ve forgotten. Remind yourself what helps you keep your sanity and your grounding. And remember that being this person to others counts, even if it’s in subtle ways.

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

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Please stop obsessing over your health. I know the environment and most of the food we eat are toxic. We’re all getting older. But your mental pattern is not helping — and you’re well positioned to change your mind. I suggest you start with an idea of what it means to be healthy. Create a concept of wellbeing. Make it original. I suggest you include your idea of relationships that support your presence in the world, your sense of belonging and most of all, your productivity. It’s essential that you not compromise who you are in order to be acceptable in a relationship. This should go without saying, but the world has some rather different notions of what it means to ‘be together’ so we do need to keep the topic upfront in your mind. Remember — your concept of relating to others needs to be flexible, as do the people you relate to. You’ll figure out whether that is true soon enough.

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

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — You are still in the idea phase; you’ve yet to really get down to work, though now is the time for that. Yes, it’s definitely still the time to focus on the concept of what you’re doing, and the chance you want to take on something — however, the moment is ripe to start doing the real work. That should feel like construction of some kind; a transition from paper to wood, from a sketch to clay; from entirely flexible ideas to an experiment with the materials you will use. You need to get your body into the project, and get your hands dirty. As you do this, you’ll feel the change in your thinking; there is a dimension shift involved, and once you move into 3D, that will have the effect of sculpting your thoughts and ideas. And you need to be shaped by them as much as they need to be shaped by you — though it’s only going to happen in physical reality, in real time. Perhaps even with a welding torch.

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

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — For the past few weeks it’s like you’ve been running the triathlon. One emotional challenge after the next has surfaced; one fear after the next, compelling you to take charge of your life in what seems like a different way every day. Now that whole sequence of challenges has passed. It’s gone on so long you may still be braced for the next one. You still have body memory of every day facing a challenge different from the prior one. I suggest you take a moment and appreciate the relative calm. But do so only long enough for you to take action on what you kept wanting to do before, but which kept getting interrupted. You have much more support right now, and you’re feeling stronger. One by one, planets are about to enter your fellow earthy sign Taurus, which is going to feed you energy. Use it well, while you have the opportunity — and it is truly an opportunity.

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

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Yes, what you’re thinking is original, yes, it’s a little weird, and yes, it’s a good idea. There are a lot of good ideas — so many in fact, it’s a little tragic. I say that because most of those ideas don’t ever get applied to the problems they were intended to solve, or manifest in the form of something useful; that’s the part that takes work. Yet it takes discernment to recognize that what you’re thinking has a value. I assure you that it does, and that it has a value beyond what you can imagine now. Now, this whole concept of value is going to be the big question over the next few years, and I strongly suggest you put your mind to this question — the value of ideas, and of your ideas. Value must be recognized and acted on; if you hesitate between the two, ask yourself why you’re doing so. Time does not last forever. Meditation is a virtue; hesitation is not.

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

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — You’re well on the way to figuring out you exist. I’m not kidding when I say that most people don’t know they exist. If they did, they would live differently than they do. And as you make the latest in your ongoing series of self-discoveries, you will choose to live differently, in ways both subtle and bold. You’re in the process of making a discovery that has not quite come into focus yet, though as it does, you will see that the way to certain decisions is open, where before it seemed blocked. One important dimension of this discovery is about your relationship between self-esteem and money. Said another way, it’s about self-respect and power. Once you respect who you are, your power ceases to be compromised. You are less vulnerable to manipulation. And success will seem less like an alien thing and more like something you do naturally every day.

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

May is Self-Awareness Month

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Dear Friend and Reader:

In late 2010, one of the Planet Waves editors posted to our blog an article she found about the odd relationship options offered by Facebook (for example, the category ‘it’s complicated’ being a stand-in for everything other than something supposedly normal, without saying what). Following that article back to its source, a blog called Onely.org, I discovered the existence of a singles movement.

Photo by Eric Francis – Blue Studio, New York.

A singles movement? This is about people for whom conventional relationship models do not work, or more simply put, a movement of people who want to go solo. Methods of doing this vary, but I can generalize a little. They don’t want to date in any conventional way, they don’t live with the expectation of marriage, they don’t cohabitate, and they don’t do the boyfriend-girlfriend thing. They don’t want to be half of a couple, in the immortal words of Erica Jong; they want to be a whole person, and the easiest way for them to facilitate that is to be single, our society’s ultimate form of queer.

There are a lot of possibilities here, but the main idea overall is stepping outside the box of relationship expectations in which we so often get caught, like it or not. Those who are living a solo way of life might count their friends and erotic partners as being on an equal par, on the basis that all relationships have value. One is not on a higher rung than another. From what I have read, there’s substantial questioning of how society compels many people to embrace relationship options that might not (or absolutely do not) work for them.

There is as much questioning of heteronormative conditioning as there is in any queer community. In case you haven’t heard that word, it’s a keeper: heteronormative — a concept to contain all the rules and regulations you’re supposed to follow in a world oriented primarily on heterosexual relationships, which are considered the norm — indeed, there’s still a compulsory quality. I am always intrigued every time I see a wedding band flashed in a TV commercial, particularly on a man’s hand, which is often. No matter what product they’re selling, the other product is marriage.

The idea of a singles movement immediately sounded revolutionary because much of the relationship discussion is about what form of long-term committed relationship one chooses (mono or poly, married or living together, gay or straight), rather than questioning the orthodoxy of relationship. Many people have the feeling that if they’re not ‘in a relationship’ they’re not normal. Many places having a partner or spouse is the equivalent of fully-vested citizenship. Once you have someone on your arm, you’re allowed into society. Meanwhile, if you’re not ‘in a relationship’, what about all your other relationships. Why don’t they count? Well, as for what counts, we’re almost always talking Relationship with a big R.

Over the years I’ve been an astrologer, I’ve worked with, and heard from, many people for whom the relationship game as it’s currently set up simply does not work. Who they are does not fit any known model of relationship, and they cannot seem to find partners who match their values. Many of these people are the aware and questioning types, who strive to live consciously. Many of them even want to be in a relationship that suits them, but don’t seem to find suitable situations.

So I was happy to find some information and validation that seemed to be skewed in their direction. Exploring other websites in this genre, the discussion I read was often politically astute and a bit indignant. There was a lot of discussion of why married people get such significant tax breaks. And why should the dentist be asking about your marital status? Is that vaguely relevant to getting your teeth cleaned? If they need to notify your next of kin that you have a cavity, they can call your sister.

Photo by Eric Francis – Blue Studio, New York.

Out of curiosity, I started typing the word ‘masturbation’ into search engines on various singles movement sites and getting nothing back (with the exception of one derogatory reference to ‘mental masturbation’). I thought this lack of discussion was interesting and more than a bit strange. Here was a movement advocating living freely and being detached from relationship expectations as a vocal choice.

We all know that many people stay in relationships to assure a supply of sex, even if those relationships don’t always serve their other growth needs. To be free of these dysfunctional relationships, it would help (in my fantasy world) to have an idea of sexual independence we could aspire to. And one logical starting point for that would be really, truly understanding one’s inner sexuality, and doing well with being one’s own lover. But the movement advocating how you can be free of these relationships, at least that I could find that evening, had nothing to say about sex with oneself.

The movement advocating being single was the very last place I would have guessed there was a taboo on discussing solo sex. Clearly, if you’re single and want to be, that implies that sex with oneself is not a substitute for anything, and also that (assuming you have a sex drive) it’s an entirely necessary state of affairs. If being single implied having a low sex drive, Thomas Edison would have never invented the singles bar.

I wrote to the editor of one of these websites, and after a round of emails that went on for a few weeks, she basically told me that they just didn’t feel comfortable talking about self-sex. I admit to being a bit naïve, but truly, I was stunned. Okay, just a little stunned. The lack of authentic sexual conversation is normal fare in our culture. In exploring the many reasons why masturbation is still taboo, we must include that as one of them. But I think it goes deeper. It’s fair to say that considerable embarrassment surrounds the topic of masturbation. It’s private, and most people would rather keep it that way (unless you count their fantasies of getting caught).

Photo by Eric Francis – Blue Studio, Brussels.

It’s about to be May, which was officially designated Masturbation Month back in 1995 by the Good Vibrations toy stores in Berkeley and San Francisco. We now have 31 days of cultural sanction for the conversation. Speaking as an astrologer, I’ve always thought it was appropriate that the time of year when the Sun is in Taurus (the sign of self-value, associated with physical sensuality) was a great time to start the festivities. And by the end of May we have Gemini lighting up the sky, a delightfully kinky sign associated with the ‘dual self’ phenomenon — a kind of inner mirror where you can see yourself as any gender you like.

What exactly is Masturbation Month? It’s a little like Chrysanthemum Appreciation Week, only it involves masturbation and it lasts a month — and it’s a lot more radical. I don’t think Obama signed a proclamation, but we can pretend.

What would the conversation be about? I would propose that masturbation is about a lot more than masturbation — and that’s the reason it’s still considered so taboo by many people, and in many places. First, I would say that masturbation holds the key to all sexuality. It’s a kind of proto-sexuality, the core of the matter of what it means to be sexual. I mean this in an existential sense. Masturbation is the most elemental form of sexuality, requiring only awareness and a body. Whatever we experience when we go there is what we bring into our sexual encounters with others — whether we recognize it or not. Many factors (such as projection and denial) contribute to obscuring this simple fact.

However, people who are comfortable with their sexuality in general are likely to be comfortable with masturbation. It also works the other way. If you want to know how someone feels about sex, ask them how they feel about masturbation and you’ll get your real answer. Self-sex is a path to self-knowledge, which is essential to mature, healthy relationships. The less mature relationships can be mazes of ignorance and codependency, and often, sexual dependency is a major ingredient in the glue that bonds these encounters together.

This, in my opinion, is why masturbation, and by that I mean conscious self-sex, is so revolutionary. It’s a bold way to be who you are, as you are, regardless of any expectations of relationship.

In contemplating the masturbation taboo, I figured out something that turns out to be a factor in the oldest literature that insists masturbation must be forbidden: it has a tendency to open up one’s fantasy life. And we all know this knows no bounds. That, in turn, can point to desire for sexual and relational options other than what one has at the moment, outside the rules. Far from being a mechanical experience of sexual maintenance that it’s often portrayed as being, self-sex helps us open up an inner world of possibilities.

Photo by Eric Francis – Blue Studio, New York.

Within that world are two basic elements: what we want, and what we keep in the shadows. Where pair-bonded relationships are the norm, desire for anything other than what we have in the current relationship is often regarded as forbidden territory. If you have sex with yourself, who are you thinking about? That can grant a tremendous sense of inner freedom, something we dearly need. If revealed to anyone else, it can also open up a can of worms. If you have a partner or spouse, I ask you — can you reveal the contents of your fantasy life to him or her? Some brave couples may be able to do this with powerful results. As one of my favorite authors once wrote, only the truth is erotic. Pretend for a moment that the contents of your imagination are not private.

Consider the possibility that the people closest to you, or even those who pick up on your energy, might catch on to what’s going on in your inner world of desire. The more perceptive people in your world can see through you, and those with whom you’re sexually intimate, or attracted to, might be able to tap right in. Yet what we call the ego puts up all kinds of blocks to this awareness, and by that I mean fear expressed as shame or embarrassment.

For many people, knowing that their partner is thinking about a past or potential lover (or a current secret lover) would lead to some deep insecurities coming to the surface. So when we stash away masturbation, we’re stashing away all the secret desires held in our erotic and amorous fantasies, as well as papering over those insecurities. They will then tend to surface in our relationships in other ways, primarily as jealousy.

The term shadow material from Jungian psychoanalysis fits well here. Shadow is all this stuff we contain within ourselves, including guilt, shame, the fear of abandonment, rage, hatred and all their cousins. These are emotions we tend to project into relationships. For example, we might see them as qualities in others but not ourselves. They might become ‘issues’ in the relationship. It’s easy to understand how this works. An insecure person is much likelier to be jealous of a partner than someone who is confident in themselves and in the relationship (usually in that order). In that case, jealousy would be a projection of insecurity (and/or envy and/or the fear of abandonment).

Photo by Eric Francis – Blue Studio, New York.

Conscious masturbation, and by that I mean your inner erotic reality experienced as part of your ongoing relationship with yourself, is one way to access and process these dark feelings rather than project them outward. If you experience any embarrassment, shame or misgiving around masturbation (and most people do, at least occasionally), consider the possibility that these things obscure something deeper, that being your point of contact with yourself. You can call that self-love or self-esteem; you can call it being centered in your reality. I am talking about an authentic inner journey, the kind that usually gets categorized in the bin with the label ‘spiritual’, but which has a distinctly sexual sensation.

Given that religion as we know it (particularly as Christians, Jews or Muslims) has not only made sexuality allegedly bad, but has also built its fortune on doing so, it can take quite a bit of determination to go here. We are all influenced by religion’s misgivings and control dramas around sex. The fact that so many people experience forms of false modesty, embarrassment, shame and guilt, in many facets of life, and also where masturbation is a factor, suggests that there is a connection. And I would add that because the control games of religion are most often aimed at women, self-eroticism in any form is particularly revolutionary for them. For many women it is the first place they can step out of their chains and confront the shame of existence that is so often projected onto female sexuality. Let’s remember that there are many, many women for whom masturbation provides their only orgasms.

I’m also speaking to anyone who feels like they depend on others for their sexual pleasure and sense of self-contact a bit more than they want to, and who may live with the secret knowledge that they want to be more independent.

I will leave you with an idea that I’m developing in other venues this month, which is self-centered sexuality. I know, this is the thing we’re supposed to avoid in that we’re ‘not supposed to be selfish’. I’m not talking about selfish, I’m talking about self. Self-centered sexuality means being centered within yourself. This is different from narcissism, which translates loosely to, ‘nobody besides me exists, or matters’.

Taking this to a fully conscious level, say, as conscious as yoga practice, is something that would benefit everyone, and is a space for unpartnered people to explore their authentic sexuality. I would also propose as part of this that couples explore getting closer to one another by masturbating in one another’s presence. This is perfectly intuitive for some people and just as counter-intuitive for others. In the experience, I suggest including the full content of your mind and not just your body. In case you experience embarrassment, I would offer you the idea that the very hottest sexual experiences are just on the other side of that veil.

Photo by Eric Francis – Blue Studio, New York.

For those who consider themselves ‘not in a relationship’, this opens up many possibilities, including a great option for ‘friends with benefits’. That would be sharing masturbation, something that can be surprisingly natural and fulfilling, but absent most of the usual worries about sex (pregnancy, STIs, over-attachment). It’s a way to share sex without the baggage of thinking you have to get married or even send flowers.

You’ll also have an opportunity to encounter material that has come up in your past relationships, and (for example) explore healing your self-esteem, body issues or sexual shadow material. Imagine if you could enter your encounters with others from a confident and self-aware place, understanding who you are and what you want. That would give you a new basis for choosing a partner, or allow you to consider the idea that you might not want to be in a conventional relationship. Imagine if you could fully embrace the sexuality of everyone you meet, with open-minded curiosity rather than a sense of threat. This is what I mean by self-centered sexuality.

So, the sex toy stores may be calling this Masturbation Month. I would revise that to Self-Awareness Month.

Lovingly,

Photo selections by Sarah Bissonnette-Adler.

Was Royal Wedding Chart Planned by Astrologers?

Yesterday, I asked what royal astrologers — assuming they exist — were thinking when they planned the chart for today’s wedding of William and Kate (which began at 11 am London time, 6 am EDT). The chart has one unusual property — the Pisces Moon is void of course, meaning that it’s not making any aspects to other planets prior to entering the next sign. That’s not the kind of thing that you would expect a professional astrologer to include in a chart this important — the marriage of the future king and queen consort. To me this suggests the chart was not planned by astrologers but rather was based on a guess that worked out pretty well. One thing that seems to have been intentional enough was putting the wedding on the day of Catherine of Siena. Catherine, of course, is the long form of Kate, who is now Princess Catherine.

Chart for today’s royal wedding places the concentration of planets at the top of the chart. Venus, the blue girl, is the most elevated planet. The void of course Moon is high up slightly toward the right. At the bottom of the chart is Saturn in Libra, occupying one of the chart’s most potent angles, the IC. This tells us that no matter how modern the new couple may be, there is a deep anchor into tradition.

Let’s look at the very basic elements of traditional astrology first. The whole endeavor looks royal enough; the ascendant grants the appearance of things, and the chart has Leo rising — a sign of royalty. So there is something kingly about it; it is the marriage of the future king.

At the top of the chart (skewed a little to the right), the Aries cluster is in the 10th house — the house of the king or the president, so that is royal enough. There is a lot going on in this house; the affairs of state are definitely a key part of the subject matter of this chart. With Aries on the 10th, it’s not too cynical to say that the business of state is war. But with Venus as the most elevated planet, we see at least a pretty face being put on that agenda, and at best, the possibility for something else. On the personal level, Venus in Aries as the most elevated planet suggests that this is the chart for the coronation of not merely a princess but rather of a queen.

Yet the narrative of a chart is usually told most articulately by the Moon. And the Moon is the odd thing about this chart — it’s void of course. That is to say, the Moon is late in a sign (in this case Pisces, late in the zodiac), and it’s not going to make aspects to any other planet before it enters the new sign. It’s a little like saying there is no story. The Moon is in Pisces, but it’s void in that sign, which can subtract the energy in question rather than add it. Pisces is about empathy, going through struggles together, service and public contact (the latter point emphasized by the Moon as well).

Looked at one way, we have a story that is ‘no story’. Or at least it is not directly indicated by the chart what transpires. Yet there is a partial exception to the Moon being void, suggested by William Lilly, one of the great astrologers in English history. That exception says that if the Moon is in one of the signs that it rules (Cancer or Taurus, where it is exalted), or one of the signs ruled by Jupiter (Sagittarius or Pisces), it will do some of its work carrying the story forward, because nothing is in the way that might stop it. And yes, there are many charts where it would be great if you could get the Moon out of the way. It seems to bollix things up at least half the time.

The Moon is first associated with the sign Cancer, so to see where the Moon is ‘coming from’, we can look at this sign. In the marriage chart, Cancer is in the 12th house — and the whole sign is intercepted there. Cancer does not touch the cusp of the 1st or the 12th. It’s like Cancer is swallowed by, or locked into, a house that’s usually associated with secrets, prisons and things too weird to comprehend. This can include dead people. And from this house, the Moon emerges and shows up void in Pisces. That’s the next best thing to it not being there at all.

So this leads one to wonder — what is this really about? William is designated to be the guy who leads the kingdom and moreover protects the fortunes of the Windsors (the royal house) well into the 21st century. Few of us who are adults today will live long into that reign. Elizabeth seems to have figured out the secret to eternal life, and we may even get to endure Charles being king for a while. So William is being groomed for a phase of history that is unforeseeable now.

These are some of the minor planets gathered around the degrees of the Moon, checking just the mutable signs. Typhon, a point in the region of Pluto, is located middle of those late mutable degrees. That evokes the tornados that have whipped across the U.S. the past few days. Also, the mysterious 28+ Gemini degree, which links together so many key world events ranging from Sept. 11 to the Fukushima quake, is occupied. The point is Apophis, a near-Earth asteroid discovered in 1976, and which was briefly a source of worry about a possible collision. It’s closer to the Sun than is Earth, and its orbit potentially crosses ours. The name is of Egyptian origin.

Part of the goal of a royal marriage is to produce an heir. For information about that, we look to the 5th house — and there, we find Scorpio. Note that there are no planets in Scorpio (which I’ll come back to in a moment). What we do in any event is follow Scorpio to wherever we find Mars, and that is in Aries, in the 10th house, conjunct Jupiter. That tells us that the child produced by this marriage will very likely be king. Aries, the 10th and Jupiter are all regal enough. But Scorpio lacking any planets reminds us that we have no description of who this person will be.

The fact that Mars-Jupiter is also conjunct Eris does give some reason for concern. So, all in all, we have a pretty mysterious chart, one that suggests what we’re seeing is more like a movie than a real event.

Let’s check in with the minor planets. Using the set selected over the years by Tracy and me at Serennu.com [see minor planet ephemeris here], the asteroid closest to the ascendant is Requiem, which is associated more with songs about death than about love. This may be a reminder of Diana, Princess of Wales, whose presence still looms large in the royal house and modern history of England.

Let’s take a look at what the minor planets say about that void of course Moon. In the rules of traditional astrology, aspects to astroids or newly discovered bodies would not change that Moon from being void, but astrology is in a transitional phase, so let’s take a look and see, at least, what is described. The Moon’s closest aspect is an exact opposition to Makemake. This is a dwarf planet (like Pluto or Eris) and it’s considered an important discovery. It was named for the creator god of the indigenous folks of Easter Island; it’s also a fertility god. So we have, at least, a clue that the purpose of the marriage — creating an heir to the throne — will be fulfilled.

The Moon is also square the Galactic Core. That brings in the large, sweeping themes associated with the core, and the ‘great presence lurking behind the scenes’ effect for which the Galactic Core is famous. The Moon is summoning the energy of the core, trying to bring that quality into the more conventional ‘spirituality’ of the Earthly realm.

Looking at the little table that lists the minor planets, notice that there’s a sequence of planets in Pisces to which the Moon will indeed make conjunctions. Actually, there are four of them clustered in the last degree of Pisces (all with the number 29 next to them) — Circe, Urania, the Osculating Apogee (Black Moon Lilith) and (last but surely not least) Karma.

This Moon seems to be describing something specific, or rather, someone. That someone emerges from the spirit world of the 12th house and manifests high in the sky in the spirit world of Pisces. She has no assigned role; she is ‘out of the way’, but she’s very much a presence. Her name is being evoked every few minutes — that would be Diana, named for the goddess of the Moon.

— By Eric with additional research by Tracy Delaney

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, April 29, 2011, #857 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Aries (March 20-April 19) — The thing that you feel is in the way is actually your balancing point. It may be annoying for being in the way, though it’s vital as a counter-balance to the energy pouring through your life. For the moment, you have to live with this situation and, I trust, learn to turn it into an opportunity. While you may not think you have any real freedom, you have many viable options available, though they aren’t opportunities in the sense of five job offers. It’s more like you have five talents that you know it’s time to get working in harmony with one another rather than competing with one another. If you seem to be facing a limit, think of it as a container. For example, let’s say we’re talking about a job situation that you want to change. How much can you bring your talents into your current situation, despite its drawbacks? The more you can, the more you will open the way to a future where all of you is welcome.

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

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Remember that meaning is only meaningful in context, and currently most of that involves your experience of your own mind and emotions. Typically we cannot see this because we see everything through the filter of our own mind. Yet for the moment, you have a window into a kind of blind spot in your psyche. That’s the place where so much is influencing you, but which is so difficult for you to get a grasp on. It’s the source of the pressure you’re feeling, and the volatility. You may not be able to resolve those feelings now, but you can ground yourself in productive or creative activity that will at least give you the opportunity to put your energy to use. What you’re doing may not live up to your imagination, but actually it looks like a great opportunity to bring your creativity into a project or task that will benefit from some love — and which will benefit you as well.

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

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Mercury is still shell-shocked after its retrograde phase in Aries. The feeling reminds me a little of the Earth vibrating after a quake. Aries is a bold sign, though what it represents — our sense of identity — is a fragile thing. For you, Aries represents how you are perceived, where you fit into your social scene, and how you define yourself as a ‘public’ individual. Yet there is a deeper theme to this house, which is what you want out of life. This, you seem to be grappling with. There are days when everything seems like a fantastic possibility. Other days it seems like you have no options at all. Yet in both of those scenarios you are watching life like a movie. At this stage of your growth it’s essential that you take up the charge of visioning your own way in life. You will know the difference because a movie screen reflects some other light, and a vision gives off a light of its own.

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

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — You’ve been spun around recently, and may be struggling for some direction in your professional life. There are many things you want to do, while you’re confronted continually by one thing that you have to do. Looked at one way, this is a crisis; looked at another way, it’s a sign that your creativity exceeds your current structure or framework, particularly your mental structure. In order to work this out, I suggest you take a long-range view; think in terms of two to five years. Yes, this seems like a long time, but the years go by quickly, and most of why we seem to fall short of the progress we want involves the lack of long-term self-guidance. If I am not mistaken, there is one thing you’ve wanted to do, or accomplish, for a very, very long time. Somehow you keep missing that goal, or forgetting it. I suggest you make a series of decisions, starting now, to guide your life in that direction. Keep your focus, and don’t worry about the results.

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

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — You’ve been running an obstacle course lately. Many plans, revised plans and possibilities are flying around your head like so many airplanes at O’Hare. I trust that over the past week some of them, at least, have come in for a landing and others have flown off to different horizons. You’re now free to take some tangible action and accomplish something you’ve put off for a while. I would point out that amidst all of these different concepts for what is possible, there is something that is particularly alluring; it has a mix of daunting and inevitable. It may be the least predictable among your many objectives — or the one that causes the most disruption when you try to get it going. That is a sign that your idea contains energy, which is, in turn, a sign of its actual potential. As for the lack of predictability — you might call that the ‘god factor’ — the unknown element that leads to a truly creative outcome.

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

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — Remember that you’re still in the early phase of a long process of establishing your relationships, and your relationship to existence, on new ground. At times it may not feel like ground, any more than the floor of a canoe does as you’re coasting down a river. Yet this floating, moving surface area is providing you with a stable enough platform to stand on. At the same time, you seem to be surrounded by a diversity of people who are making various offers and demands. I strongly suggest you look for the one or two that are in close harmony with your values. By close, I mean truly, authentically connected to who you are and what is important to you. Learn to identify this point of contact when you encounter someone, and moreover, to identify when it’s not present. The key is to not be guided by prejudice; you might find this bond with those significantly different than yourself, and be absent in those you consider more similar to you.

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

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — You may be under more stress than you think. The fact that you’re able to handle a lot of push, pull and delicate balancing doesn’t change the fact that it affects you. You may not be able to tell how you actually feel until you get away from people and tune into your inner being. I suggest you do this as much as possible. At the moment you live between two worlds; one is more obvious, louder and full of commitments; the other is subtle, it’s quiet and it’s easy to distract yourself from. But both are real and vital parts of your life. It is the inner calling that is drawing your attention now; it is the source of your energy and the way to orient on your wellbeing. If you’re looking for a way in, start with silence and solitude. From there, any meditative act will take you deeper, such as drawing or music. Deep within the many swirling activities of your world is a deeper place that you are craving.

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

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — You seem to be in the place of renewing a relationship, or are feeling a new experience on the horizon. This could be truly beneficial, as you may be feeling. I suggest, however, that you make peace with two possibilities: one is how you might feel if you’re actually desired. Usually, you’re the one who does the desiring. Often, being wanted can stir up a lot of controversy, among other things, because one has the feeling of being seen and noticed. When someone, indeed, anyone wants you, you cannot feel invisible, no matter how much you want to. Second, there is the possibility that you will have to engage with a kind of conflict that you have often vowed to leave behind. You can leave it behind, if you remember (ongoing) that the shadow material that comes up in relationships relates directly to the shadow material you are carrying. Address it within yourself first, and the relationship is more likely to follow your example.

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

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — You should now be able to get a little more traction on your creative plans. Even if you’ve been beset by various delays and mix-ups, and even if this has hurt your confidence, I suggest you take a few solid steps and see where you end up. You’re not lacking for bold ideas, that’s for sure. As for confidence, you seem to live in two realities — one in which you’ve got what it takes, and another in which that can evaporate in doubt. The only way to resolve this is through action, which is to say, by daring and seeing what you’re capable of. Once you get the hang of that, and see how much you’re capable of, you may still experience doubt — but at that point it’s merely a thought that doesn’t have to take over your life in any way. In my opinion, the one and only key to freedom is experience.

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

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — This must be an emotionally complex time for you. If so, I suggest it’s time to apply what you learned recently about your attachment to the past, and to who you thought you were in the past. I would also suggest that you ask yourself whether you’re becoming more like your parents, or less like them. This is the question. You have the power to take that process in any direction you like. You can integrate their positive attributes, and outgrow their anxieties; you can take on the worst of who they are (or were). In our time, in your generation, the choice is yours. Yet this is a bigger choice than you may imagine. Collectively, we are at a moment when we need to make a break with the past. That is not about flying cars or solar panels. It’s about how we experience fear, and what it means. It’s about how we think of ourselves; it’s about who we think we are, and what choices we make as a result.

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

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — You may get a clear idea where you want to put down some new roots, be they emotional, physical or both. You may not be able to act on it right away, but you can create a strategy based on a calling or devotion that you feel. These three concepts are grouped as one idea: roots, calling and strategy. The feeling, when you tune into it, is one that comes with an unusual sense of depth. It’s something you know and feel in your body. In a sense, you’re not making a decision, it is making you. Meanwhile, your mind may have a diversity of opinions, doubts and thoughts of its own, and you can watch those go by like a movie; you don’t have to react or even respond to them. Yet the thing you’re most likely to get is confirmation of some kind that what you’re feeling is authentic and solid. What to do next will follow logically.

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

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — I’m always impressed how messed up so many people are when it comes to money — how mystified, closed-minded and afraid. Money is tied for first place with sex on the list of things people get weird about. The weirdness seems to run in the same basic direction — a crisis over sharing, by which I mean giving and receiving, which can then culminate in withholding and being taken from. It’s as if when we shut down the voluntary process of exchange, and refuse to do what we actually want, some other system takes over. This is the time to own your money, to own your desire, and in fact to own any other resources that you consider your own. The reason to do this consciously is so that you can give and receive as you choose, with what is rightfully yours, undaunted by anyone who refuses to actively, consciously possess what is their own. Your power is your power. You can go anywhere from there.

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