Tag Archives: Sagittarius

Big Thanks: Sagittarius, Jupiter and the Gemini Full Moon

By Amanda Painter

The Sun enters Sagittarius today at 4:01 am EST (9:01:23 UTC) to begin the last month of the current season. Less than 24 hours later, we get a Full Moon in Gemini (the Moon opposite the Sun, exact at 12:39 am EST / 5:39:06 UTC). On the one hand, the Full Moon could amplify any Thanksgiving tensions (or other social polarities, if that’s not your holiday); on the other hand, given the mutable signs involved, you may find that conflicts are easier to breeze over, chat your way through, or bend around.

The 2015 Gemini Full Moon; photo by Amanda Painter

The 2015 Gemini Full Moon; photo by Amanda Painter

Part of what will spell the difference is your own personal emotional history and the social circumstances (especially familial) that you find yourself in today and through the weekend. If you’re gathering with people who don’t tend to push your buttons, or if you’ve done a lot of therapy and healing work around those buttons, the sociability of the planets currently in Sagittarius (the Sun, Jupiter and retrograde Mercury) may be more dominant or easier to tap into.

If you know you’ll be in a situation between now and Sunday where it’s possible old wounds might be metaphorically uncovered or picked at, it could be helpful to make a self-care strategy before you get there. Identify early the spaces (indoors or outdoors) where you can escape briefly to collect yourself. It might be useful to get in touch beforehand with either someone who’ll be at the gathering who is an ‘ally’, or someone elsewhere who’ll be able to respond to texts, and let them know you might call on them for a little grounding or venting.

Of course, if you decide instead to do your own thing — or if you get to choose who’s invited to the gathering, with no sense of obligation to invite those who cause you difficulty — this shouldn’t be as much of an issue. (Though you might want to investigate sometime the relationship between your sense of obligation to your family and your sense of commitment to your own healing process and wellbeing.)

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A blue wave? Jupiter’s south pole, as seen by NASA’s Juno spacecraft from an altitude of 32,000 miles (52,000 kilometres). Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Betsy Asher Hall/Gervasio Robles

After the Election: Which Jupiter Will You Feed?

By Amanda Painter

As the dust settles on Tuesday’s midterm elections in the U.S., I wish I could say the political landscape looked even more different — but I am grateful for the movement that was achieved. Voters came out in increased numbers on both sides, and women were voted into office to an unprecedented degree. There is no longer a one-party lock on all three branches of government.

A blue wave? Jupiter’s south pole, as seen by NASA’s Juno spacecraft from an altitude of 32,000 miles (52,000 kilometres). Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Betsy Asher Hall/Gervasio Robles

A blue wave? Jupiter’s south pole, as seen by NASA’s Juno spacecraft from an altitude of 32,000 miles (52,000 kilometres). Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Betsy Asher Hall/Gervasio Robles

This opens the way for House Democrats to put things in motion, specifically subpoenas to investigate Trump’s taxes and his involvement with Russia in 2016. Of course, Trump is already saying he’ll be happy to work with House Dems — as long as they don’t go after those subpoenas; in which case he’ll “fight fire with fire.”

Even so, we now have the first two Native American women in the U.S. House (for context, more than 10,000 people have served in the House since the first Congress met in 1789). The first two Muslim women have been voted into the House. A Latina woman is the youngest representative ever elected to the House, and there are new African American women elected to this branch of government, with USA Today putting the total number of all women in the House at 118 as of midday Wednesday — breaking the previous record.

Colorado elected its first openly gay governor. And although Democrat Beto O’Rourke lost his Senate bid in historically red Texas to incumbent Ted Cruz, he did strikingly well in counties that border Mexico and have higher Latinx populations (as well in as the more diverse urban centers in the state).

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Mars in Sagittarius — and a Few Other Adjustments

By Amanda Painter

You know that feeling when you’ve been incredibly busy, or very focused on a project, and then those activities wind down but you feel momentarily adrift, or not sure where to channel your energy next? But then, almost as soon as you’ve thought that, the next thing comes along to keep your energy level up and engaged?

Photo by Amanda Painter.

Photo by Amanda Painter.

That might be one way to think of Mars entering Sagittarius tomorrow, just six days after centaur planet Pholus left that sign. Mars leaves Scorpio, a sign it rules, and brings its fiery energy to fiery Sagittarius at 7:56 am EST on Friday (12:56 UTC).

The influence of Pholus in Sagg was something we kind of got used to for many years. In terms of the ‘runaway reaction’ Pholus signifies, we’ve witnessed it in the way the world seems to be spinning out of control. Long before Trump as president, before Uranus made its signature aspects to Pluto and Eris, we had Pholus adding some rocket fuel to life — in a segment of the zodiac that can already feel a little ‘out there’.

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jan21-2018

A Penetrating Mind, and Mars Changes Sign

What do you need to dig into, investigate or persuade someone about? Astrology this week offers support in those realms, though with a caveat: empathy and a goal of mutual benefit need to be guiding principles — along with an awareness of the potential for obsession and self-righteousness.

jan21-2018

Dragon-horse sculpture by Taiwanese artist Hung Yin in Manhattan. Photo by Amanda Painter.

In this era of binge-watching shows online and falling down Google rabbit holes, it seems we’re becoming acclimated to a certain level of obsessive behavior.

That can be problematic when it comes to getting distracted when you’re on a work deadline; or when an inability to avoid the pull of obsessive diversions undermines personal goals. When it becomes a habit, self-esteem can suffer.

Yet there’s a time and a place for hyper-focusing. Many kinds of research and high-stakes tasks require it for brief stretches. If you’re investigating a mystery, engaging in intense, penetrating thought could be the key to solving it — as long as you don’t fixate on one detail to the exclusion of others that might, in fact, lead you to the solution.

As Mercury nears its conjunction to Pluto in Capricorn this week (exact Wednesday), these are some of the themes to watch for. You may find your mind is predisposed to getting under the surface of something; perhaps what you say to someone will strike at the heart of a matter, or persuade them of your point of view. If so, being considerate of others’ feelings, and not misrepresenting yourself, are important.

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Notes from Virgo: Use Your Intelligence

Dear Friend and Reader:

At the recent United Astrology Conference, astrologer/activist Caroline Casey noted that Pluto has left Sagittarius, but it seems that nobody has informed world leaders of that fact. What I understood her to be saying is that the Pluto in Sagittarius vibe of obsession over ideology, fanatical religious ideas and true-believership is still going strong, even though Pluto started its transition into Capricorn in 2008.

Planet Waves
Front door of the Hermitage, Omega Institute. Photo by Eric.

Sagittarius is usually considered a sign associated with religion and beliefs, and under the influence of Pluto these became relentless influences, infiltrating every area of life. The 15-year Pluto in Sagittarius era (spanning 1995-2009) featured the consolidation of religious power in the United States, as well as the American Taliban vs. the Taliban in the ongoing religious crusade known as the ‘War on Terror’. Supposed ministers of Jesus preached the gospel of war to stoke up their conservative congregations.

What most astrologers don’t know is that there are many other slow-moving points still in Sagittarius. They don’t have the reputation of Pluto, because they were discovered more recently and because fewer astrologers use and write about them. One reason for this is that the newer discoveries are classified as ‘minor’ planets and are therefore considered suspect by most astrologers, particularly those who have not investigated them.

Current activity in Sagittarius offers a descriptive, useful picture of the insanity that we’re currently experiencing in politics, which is in effect a continuing takeover of government by religion. I wish this were an exaggeration, though you can see it everywhere you look. Just this week, President Obama revised the Democratic Party’s platform to include the term “God” and state that Jerusalem is the proper capital of Israel, according to the news website Politico.com. Note that the U.S. Constitution specifically prohibits what it calls a “religious test” for suitability for office; too bad the news hasn’t got out yet.

And the Democrats are supposedly the less religiously driven party. It was the Republicans who in the early 1980s turned fundamentalist churches into political clubhouses, and implemented abstinence-only indoctrination into public schools.

Planet Waves
Someone’s parody of God at his computer, based on Gary Larson. Now that He’s been included in the Democratic national platform, he will smile on the Earth and finally bless America. Then again, it could be the delete key.

This ban on sex education, resulting in propagated ignorance, has evolved into candidates openly campaigning to criminalize abortion, proposing laws designed to humiliate women who seek reproductive health care, and even to take down the Supreme Court’s famous 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut decision. That ruling prevents states from banning the use of birth control by individuals within their private spaces. Yes, there was a time recently when a state could ban the sale of condoms on some allegedly moral ground. In our system of law, one Supreme Court decision is a foundation for the next, and Griswold establishes the right to privacy — the foundation on which Roe v. Wade is built. If Griswold goes, so does Roe — and they know that.

It’s too easy to lose sight of the fact that these are values driven by religion, not by ethics, reason, science or good public health policy. Americans live in a country where freedom of religion is enshrined in the Bill of Rights, though that means the right to practice your religion without government interference — not the right of government to impose religious values onto the people. Indeed, that freedom from imposition is the very essence of freedom of religion. ‘Get your laws off of my body’ was in the Revolutionary era about ‘get your laws off of my soul’. This seems to be happening a little more every day, even though slow-moving Pluto has moseyed into Capricorn, where it seems to be delivering into government all the mojo that it collected while in Sagittarius.

As I pointed out last week, Pluto was at the center of a nearly century-long conspiracy to get astrology to use at least one minor planet: itself. Pluto was from its discovery in 1930 through its reclassification in 2006 considered a ‘major’ planet. We now know that it’s one of many objects (there are currently more than 1,000 known) in the Kuiper Belt, the region of space just past Neptune earning it a place in the minor planet catalog as (134340) Pluto.

And it turns out that currently, there are a bunch of those planets concentrated in Sagittarius, including (among others) a Pluto-like point called Ixion, as well as Chiron-like points (centaurs) Pholus and Hylonome. These are concentrated around a deep-space point I mention from time to time called the Great Attractor, which is like an enormous energetic catapult that has the main quality of polarizing things.

This combination of forces describes a real spiritual crisis. By that, I mean things like good and evil trading places, killing in the name of love, and politicians going up to the podium drunk with power, imagining they’re standing at the bully pulpit of the universe. Most of what they spout is some form of hatred of women, or of humanity.

Planet Waves
Jupiter and its early Earth-like moon Io photographed by New Horizons in 2008. The New Horizons mission is scheduled to reach Pluto in 2015, and will return the first detailed images of that system, which we have never seen in detail. Photo: New Horizons/NASA-JPL.

I bring this up now because the mid-Virgo Sun (along with Mercury) is making aspects to these points in Sagittarius. Virgo and Sagg are both mutable signs, so what happens to one happens to the other, though in a different way.

In our era, the Sun aspects all of these Sagittarius planets every time it passes through the middle of one of the mutable signs (which also include Gemini and Pisces). This weekend the Moon passes through Gemini, forming the last quarter Moon, so we will be getting the energy from two different directions.

Virgo is a sign associated with logic, reason and other forms of mental power. It’s also the sign of the goddess, that is, the feminine attribute of cosmic presence and wisdom. At the moment, this quality is clashing with what seems to be some pretty intense (though potentially subtle) conflict, centered just around the corner in Sagittarius.

Now, if you happen to be born with the Sun, Moon or ascendant in Sagittarius, you’re experiencing this on a personal level, and one possible manifestation is as a spiritual crisis. Spiritual usually translates to existential: a question about existence (often signified by your Sun sign or rising sign), which happens to be going around on a pandemic scale. You may not, however, be experiencing personally some of the darker manifestations I am about to describe as being part of events unfolding in Sagittarius, though you could be picking it up as legacy material (ancestral, karmic or associated with past lives).

On another personal astrology note, this configuration may have additional personal meaning if you’re born between approximately March 1-10, June 1-10, September 1-10 and November 1-10. Just remember, this astrology seems to manifest differently in the private realm than it does in the collective or political realm — though there is a connection between the two. For example, a spiritual weakness in an individual or mass of individuals can be exploited by someone looking to gain political power.

Let’s go over the points involved one by one. Ixion presents us with the factor of amorality. It’s the embodiment of the idea that there is no such thing as right and wrong. There is, of course, but Ixion acts as if these things don’t matter. I take this a level deeper; I think that Ixion reminds us that anyone is capable of anything. It’s just that some of us make more wholesome choices than others, or do the work of having personal ethics.

When you put Ixion into the spiritual or religious context of Sagittarius, the combination can be nasty, mainly because religion is supposed to be a study in morals. If the religion’s own moral law is that anything goes, all kinds of cruelty can be perpetuated in the name of God. This has often been true, particularly from what we know of the past 2,000 years — though the astrology we have today is a picture of our situation today.

Ixion is joined by two faster-moving (though still relatively slow, therefore potent) minor planets. One is Hylonome (pronounced hy-la-no-me), which sums up the plight of the victims of that cruelty. This centaur planet is also associated with the grieving process, as well as with situations where there is a total loss of individuality, usually when a woman’s identity is subsumed or offered to that of a man. The combination of Ixion and Hylonome feels like people’s own pain being used as a psychological weapon against them.

Then there’s Pholus. This is like adding a high-pressure element that forces the above out of a bottle and sprays it directly at humanity. Pholus also possesses a kind of value-neutrality; it adds emphasis, force and urgency — and a sense of immediacy, but adds nothing at all in the way of discernment or ethical principles (much unlike Chiron that way). Pholus is the ‘seize the moment’ factor that we see being used by these forces — the take any opportunity to get the point across, as long as the point gets you power, money or votes.

Finally, in the background of this, just a few degrees away, is the Great Attractor. This is a deep-space point located far beyond the edge of our own galaxy, and one of its main properties is to polarize people, emotions, events and so on. As if the Ixion-Hylonome-Pholus combination is not reactive enough, the Great Attractor ramps it up a few orders of magnitude, pulsing out of Sagittarius like it’s a matter of do-or-die.

Now does everything make a little more sense?

I didn’t think so.

What’s particularly disturbing is that all of this faux-morality is being pushed on people as the only issue that matters when there is a lot else that needs our attention. Yet it should not be such a big mystery why a program about obsession over the rights of a fetus comes along with denial of global warming, ignoring the mess in the prisons, supporting the death penalty and pretending government has no job. It’s all part of the same refusal to deal with reality. By the way — while I’ve spoken mostly of the United States, it’s not just here. If you live outside the U.S., look around; you may notice many of the same things happening, though perhaps with a little better PR spin.

Planet Waves
Chart showing planets in the mid-mutable signs. Some of the Sagittarius planets are at the top right of the chart, including Pholus, Ixion and Hylonome. The planets opposite those, in Gemini, are Jupiter, the Moon and Vesta. In Pisces, to the left, are Neptune, Chiron and Borasisi (another point related to religion and belief). Finally, in Virgo are Mercury and the Sun. The point in late Leo is Transpluto, about to enter Virgo after spending about 80 years in Leo.

Here in the States, religiosity is going to have a bigger impact than we think on the November presidential election. In the days before the election, Mars comes through the alignment in Sagittarius, stirring up these issues and getting ‘the base’ all fired up. Juno, associated with marriage, social justice and the bone of contention, is right there as well, and that’s likely to show up as the ‘defense of marriage’ (which means homophobia).

And Mercury stations retrograde in Sagittarius that very day, another indicator of the influence of religion on this particular election, amidst what looks like a total meltdown of the electoral process, as one of my astrology study buddies describes it. The thing is, for quite a while, religion has played a bigger role in government than most have noticed.

A few days ago, Sun Myung Moon died. While he’s widely believed to have been a cult leader, he was much more — with tentacles enmeshed in politics and business on many levels, who owned land in all 50 states and around the world, and who would do things like fund movements to legitimize the use of chemical toxins — all while claiming to be the messiah. His mass marriage rituals were pure stagecraft to perfect his image as cult leader. You could say that this is the role of religion, in many other contexts.

Novelist Alexander Chee summed up his game in an email to me this week: “He was, no doubt, a canny operator, and his opposition to North Korea is ironic: both he and Kim Jong Il claimed messiah-like statuses. So he was really a sort of anti-Communist reflection to Kim — the Moon as it were to his Sun — we see two Korean men trying to claim God on Earth status. In a strange way, Moon’s seemingly batty religious antics was the cover for a powerful political machine that was in turn a cover for a profit-making core that benefited him more or less alone — much the way North Korea is run.”

In an article I found this week, Salon.com described a 2008 “coronation ceremony” for Moon in the Senate Office Building that was attended by 12 members of Congress. Here is how Salon.com described the affair:

On March 23 [2004], the Dirksen Senate Office Building was the scene of a coronation ceremony for Rev. Sun Myung Moon, owner of the conservative Washington Times newspaper and UPI wire service, who was given a bejeweled crown by Rep. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill. Afterward, Moon told his bipartisan audience of Washington power players he would save everyone on Earth as he had saved the souls of Hitler and Stalin — the murderous dictators had been born again through him, he said. In a vision, Moon said the reformed Hitler and Stalin vouched for him, calling him “none other than humanity’s Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent.”

To many observers, this bizarre scene would have looked like the apocalypse as depicted in “Left Behind” novels. Moon, 84, the benefactor of conservative foundations like the American Family Coalition — who served time in the 1980s for tax fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice — has views somewhere to the right of the Taliban’s Mullah Omar. Moon preaches that gays are “dung-eating dogs,” Jews brought on the Holocaust by betraying Jesus, and the U.S. Constitution should be scrapped in favor of a system he calls “Godism” — with him in charge. The man crowned “King of Peace” by congressmen once said, according to sermons reprinted in his church’s Unification News: “Suppose I were to hit you with the baseball bat to stop you, bloodying your ear and breaking a bone or two, yet still you insisted on doing more work for Father.”

People actually fall for this shit — and I don’t just mean Moonies. I mean a lot of politicians around the world who played the game with Moon, and who will keep playing the game without him. Part of this game involves religion being a ruse, cloaking over the concentration of raw power and money. It just happens to be an especially powerful one — tapping into people’s deepest fears, their confusion and sense of mystery about life, and most of all, their guilt and their apprehension around authority.

At the moment, we have another influence: the Sun and Mercury in Virgo, which are saying: use your intelligence.

Lovingly,

 

Planet Waves

Gemini Quarter Moon: Keep Your Mind On

This weekend is the last quarter Moon in Gemini. We’ll have an aspect between the Moon in a mutable sign and the Sun in another mutable sign (Virgo). Lots of mutable energy — particularly when both signs are naturally associated with Virgo — can make for nervous mental energy, as well as an explosion of ideas.

Planet Waves
Up close and personal: here are planets covering from 14-19 of the mutable signs — right in the zone where the quarter Moon is. This is called a 90-degree sort because the planets cover a narrow cross that touches Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces. Most of these are slow-moving points with a lot of impact. They’re similar to Chiron, Pluto or 1992 QB1. Though they provide rich fodder for interpretation and a way to measure the influence of a chart, most astrologers don’t bother with them. Calculation by Serennu.com. See full list here.

Indeed, from the moment the Moon ingressed Gemini Friday at 12:09 am EDT (that is, overnight Thursday to Friday in most time zones) the pace and volume of both words and ideas is likely to increase. The Moon makes many aspects while it’s in Gemini (where it will be till Sunday just before 1 pm EDT, when the Moon ingresses Cancer and a new story begins).

Part of why there are so many aspects being made by the Gemini Moon is that the Sun and Mercury are in Virgo, Neptune and Chiron are in Pisces, and there’s still a whole spaceship full of planets in Sagittarius. Most of them are smaller points orbiting our Sun that you probably haven’t heard of till now (Pholus, Ixion, Hylonome), which are begging some extremely pertinent spiritual questions.

And, over the next few days, both the Sun and the Moon will be making aspects to all these little troublemakers in Sagittarius. By spiritual questions, I really do mean obvious questions. I’m not splitting hairs here between the astral and the etheric planes, or debating whether crop circles can properly be called 7th dimensional phenomena.

No, I am asking whether something that’s cruel and manipulative can be called love, or said to be the product of spiritual evolution. I’m asking whether suspending any ethics in one’s own conduct can rightly be seen as a good example for anyone. And I’m asking what’s happened to what used to be a value about setting an example for those younger (and sometimes older) than ourselves.

I suggest you take extra steps to notice who around you is struggling, and what you can help with. I suggest you consider earnestly your own deepest questions or apprehensions about life, and respond to them in a way that’s compassionate and creative. Depending on how your chart is set up, you may be feeling some of this poignantly, whether it’s your own fear about unresolved material in your past, to the fact that you can no longer stand around and do nothing while criminals take over the whole planet, your company or your community.

Meanwhile, I suggest that if the problem is identified in a coherent way, then the solutions will come right along with it. Astrology doesn’t merely throw us paradoxes; every equation has many solutions, and I suggest you use this brilliantly intuitive, intellectually potent astrology to go from one to the other.

 

Planet Waves

Obama Accepts Nomination; Was Moon Void?

Things have an odd way of happening with the Moon void-of-course when Obama is around. For those not familiar with the term, a Moon void is the astrological equivalent of a foul ball. No matter how good it looks, if the ball sails to the right of the right field foul line, it’s nothing more than a souvenir.

Planet Waves
Eastern section (nocturnal side) of chart for Obama accepting the Democratic presidential nomination. This is the ascendant at the moment he accepts. The late Taurus Moon (you can tell it’s late because its number is so close to 30) is crossing its own South Node, as well as making a conjunction to what’s called the osculating apogee — a hypothetical point involving the Moon’s orbit. The Moon is also square another hypothetical point called Transpluto. So what we have here is a void-of-course Moon that’s making aspects to three non-tangible points, including two that are hypothetical. Is the Moon really void-of-course? It certainly seems to be guided, if only by subtle forces. See full chart here.

Technically, a Moon void is when the Moon has separated from the last major aspect to the latest planet in its current sign. Said another way, it’s late in degrees (close to 30, the number of degrees in a sign) and it won’t make any new aspects till it enters the next sign. This happens at least briefly every time the Moon changes signs (two or three times a week).

Most notably, the Moon was void when he took office at noon on Jan. 1, 2009. That came along with being sworn in a second time, if you recall Chief Justice Roberts’ making the late-night trip to the White House to re-cast the spell. There was also a Moon void on election day 2008; the Moon changed signs. And though I can’t think of examples off the top of my head, the Moon has been void at a few other key moments. I’ve associated this with the drifting feeling that the administration has had for long stretches of time.

So, I was not surprised to see the Moon passing through the last degree of Taurus when he accepted the Democratic nomination last night. The thing is, the Moon was done making aspects to planets, but it was conjunct its own South Node, as well as a lunar point called the osculating apogee (or Black Moon Lilith). Neither of these points are tangible and technically, according to the old rules of astrology, these aspects don’t count as aspects for the purpose of preventing a void Moon. [Note, I covered this aspect pattern in Thursday’s Daily Astrology post.]

Finally, the Moon was square another hypothetical point called Transpluto. This is a thing that exists in the minds of astrologers, astrology charts and a few scattered explanations here and there — and nowhere else. So we had the Moon in very late Taurus making aspects to three intangible points at the same time. To me, the implication here is that the ball is indeed in play, but that it’s being guided by subtle forces and that Obama, if he wins, is going to pass through a narrow opening.

The strange thing about the South Node is its association to the past. The Moon there describes some kind of old story — not four years old, but going much further back than that (the South Node can take us into past lifetimes). The story is influenced by things we cannot see.

One interesting quality of the Black Moon Lilith (the osculating apogee) is its association with what you can think of as the dark feminine — the psychological factors. I believe that of the two candidates for president, Obama is the one who respects women more. The Taurus Moon is strong no matter what (in its sign of exaltation). Yet we can see that it’s dealing with influences not available to normal perception.

I think that in the end, this election — to the extent that it’s really an election — is going to come down to women and the issues that affect them the most. Or so we can hope. Certainly there are plenty of them, though a lot of people seem like they’re in the mood to roll over and give up the rest of their power.

 

Planet Waves

A moment from Burning Man 2012

Planet Waves
Photo by Jim Urkuhart.

 

Planet Waves

Planet Waves monthly horoscopes provide a broader perspective that surveys the themes of the coming month and often, the weeks that follow. The September Monthly horoscope was published Friday, Aug. 24. Inner Space for September was published Tuesday, August 28. The August Moonshine Horoscope was published Friday, Aug. 17. Please note that the longer monthly horoscope (published Friday, Aug. 24) is being incorporated into the Friday issue after the Sun has entered a new sign; Inner Space still publishes on Tuesdays.

 

Planet Waves

Friday, September 7, 2012. Weekly Horoscope #916 | Eric’s Zodiac Sign Descriptions

Virgo Birthdays This Week

It’s essential that you understand how your experiences early in life have shaped you into the person you are today. In these years of your life, you’re closer to those experiences than you’ve been any time since they originally happened. You have the ability to see what it is that exists deep in your psyche as the source of your intensity. The goal of your life at this time is making sure that you don’t project your feelings, which include your insecurities and your passion, onto others. If you can interrupt that fairly typical human experience, two things can happen. You will be able to take full ownership of how you feel, and why you feel that way. And you’ll open up space for people you care about to express how they feel, which is different than what you presume they feel. Note, I’ve done a full treatment of Virgo birthdays at the Virgo birthday report.

Aries (March 20-April 19)

Aries (March 20-April 19) — This is a good time to consider your situation from a spiritual perspective. To do this you will need to explore not just the concept of ‘spiritual’ but also your relationship to the unseen world, and the way that your beliefs influence how you experience this. What I see in your chart is that there are some false beliefs that you accepted, or that were foisted on you, that bear no relationship to your true sense of God/the cosmos/your higher self. Well, none except that they stand in the way. So this process starts with an inventory of what you believe, which in turn can lead to an inventory of what you know. You can also make a list of all of the properties you believe God has, and then investigate how this contrasts with what you walk around telling yourself from moment to moment, or better still, what beliefs prompt you to take action. Here is a simple equation: What you act on is what you have faith in.

Hello Aries — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

Taurus (April 19- May 20)

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — It’s about time you made that decision to feel good about yourself, which translates to feeling like you actually belong on the planet. To do this, you’ve had to take a chance on something, though you’ve also had to be honest with yourself about some darkness that you’re struggling with. From the look of your charts, the moment you made contact with that honesty, you felt the potential to meet — or actually did meet — someone who was willing to match your energy, which has led to an experience of what seems like your real potential. If you keep doing this, which will feel like opening up a little more every day, you will see that the path you’re on is leading you in the direction of your true potential. Yet as you experience that, keep looping back around into the awareness of your deepest fears, your most distasteful attitudes and that part of you that just refuses to let go. The more you look right at these things, the more power you will have over them, and the less you’ll feel like a victim, whether of yourself or of anyone else.

Hello Taurus — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). If you would like to hear your Taurus birthday reading, please visit this link.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — You may be wondering what you have to give up in order to make someone happy, though I would ask whether any such arrangement can succeed at making anyone happy. I suggest you also do a little self-investigation and see where this is coming from. Everything has an origin, and this particular thought form is not an exception. One way to consider what you’re experiencing is an investigation of your relationship to authority. Any sense that something must be so, that is, the idea that anything is compulsory or will be enforced, relates to how you perceive authority. On this topic, there seems to be quite a bit of confusion coming through, seemingly from outside sources. If that’s true, I strongly suggest that you focus on your own needs, feelings and creative fire. Temporarily subtract everyone else and their agenda (or what you think their agenda is) from the picture, and see what you’re left to work with.

Hello Gemini — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). Have you listened to your birthday reading? Click here for an hour of astrology plus a tarot reading by Eric.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Current aspects provide the perfect environment for making substantial progress on anything that involves thinking, organizing and problem solving. If there are any writing projects you’ve been wanting to do, this is the moment not just to start but to fully engage yourself. You have access to at least two distinct levels of your mind, that I suggest you consider individually. One involves what you can think of as ‘everyday’ material, perhaps related to business functions and creative writing you would have others see. Another level offers you access to some of your innermost secrets, and this is readily accessible right now. If there’s something you’ve always wanted to say that you could not, or that you’ve struggled to get clear, try again in earnest now. I suggest you explore this particular dimension with no thought of the censors, and with no concerns that it might be read by someone else. The point of this experience is an unfiltered, direct expression of who you are and what you have to say.

Hello Cancer — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). To hear your birthday reading for the year ahead, please visit this link.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — Your financial situation is now intimately linked to your creativity, and this may have you on edge. It’s always easier to assign success or lack thereof on external conditions, such as ‘the economy’ or whether your particular talent is the thing that people are paying for these days. That’s a consideration now, though it’s a relatively minor one. Even in ‘good times’ most people have to put their best foot forward, if they want to be rewarded for doing something that really matters to them. I don’t know anyone, no matter how talented, for whom this is not a delicate spot. Fortunately, your deepest personal resources — your intelligence, your ability to come up with ideas and your gift for communication — are directly connected to your revenue stream. Cast off the idea that you get paid a fixed amount for an hour of work. Consider that the quality of your ideas, and your gift for applying them to real-life situations, is what will translate into greater abundance, and satisfaction with your work.

Hello Leo — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). Did you miss your birthday reading? Click here to order an hour of astrology plus a Tarot reading by Eric.

 


 

Planet Waves

Hello Virgo and Virgo rising readers. I’ve just finished your 2012-2013 birthday reading. Check this link to listen to your hour-long astrology reading plus Tarot.


 

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — You may be feeling like your whole childhood is in your face — your raw emotions, your cosmic questions, your expressive enthusiasm for life. Mommy, daddy, siblings, aunts and uncles, the babysitter — the whole lot of them — may be showing up like ghosts haunting your bedroom or your most sensitive inner spaces. This notion of the past occupying our lives is one that never gets enough consideration, though these specters and memories from ancient history can be looming presences. Sometimes you cannot see them; you can only feel them. At the moment, they may feel like fear — in particular, the fear that nobody in the world is actually trustworthy. You may be concerned that if you concentrate too much power and/or talent in your own hands that you too will cease to be worthy of faith. You may be concerned that if you’re too happy, others will be envious and take advantage of you. I suggest you figure out where these (or any similar) thoughts came from. I don’t think you made them up, and I imagine that you don’t want anything like this getting in the way of your happiness and your peace of mind.

Hello Virgo — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

Libra (Sep. 22 - Oct. 23)

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — One reason most people stay out of public view is insecurity. The mere thought of people being able to see them, or see the work they do, is enough to inspire nearly anyone to hide in the house. You don’t have that luxury now; you’ve stepped into a kind of spotlight, even if this is only among your closest friends and associates. You may be feeling some tension about what people find out about you, and how being noticed and observed will change who you are. When you’re making adjustments, I suggest that you err on the side of being a little more real. While cloaking yourself or retreating may seem to work to alleviate temporary discomfort, consider the longterm effects. Anything you choose to conceal now you may have to reveal later, and until you do, you’re likely to worry about it. Therefore, I suggest you be yourself — and get used to the feeling of gradually opening up and exposing yourself to the minds of others. You have more going for you than you think, though you have some progress to make developing your confidence in that fact.

Hello Libra — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Do you have this feeling that your life is balanced on one extremely delicate self-doubt? It could be anything, though I suggest you get out your microscope and see if you can find any traces of self-doubt that are influencing your life. I can name two potential (as in likely) categories: one is the lack of approval by a parent or parental figure (likely to be father), interfering with your sense of what you’re capable of, or whether you’re respectable. The second (and potentially more complex one) may involve doubts about whether you’re in fact ‘suitable relationship material’. If you’re working with that one, remember that it didn’t come from nowhere. You didn’t make up the criteria against which you’re attempting to reconcile your self-worth. However, you did take it on at some point, though if you want to let it go, it’ll be helpful to know where it came from, in part so that you can assess the credibility of the source. You’ve begun a phase of your life wherein you will be carefully considering your past tendencies in relationships, whether they serve you now and what to do about them. At the moment, some very telling information is available.

Hello Scorpio — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22)

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — You’re your own best ally and your own worst obstacle. I suggest you notice when you trip over yourself, and make a point of getting out of your own way. Part of how you do this is by going through your goals and working out any conflicts that may exist between them (such as time conflicts, priorities of what to do with resources, and getting clear in your thoughts about what’s the most meaningful thing to do first). I suggest you monitor the way that any delays are related not to something logistic but rather to an emotional hangup of some kind. You’re at a point in your life where asserting yourself in a bold way may seem dangerous. You may be wondering whether you’re perceived as a person of solid character. You may be thinking about what others think of your motives. I suggest you put that all out of the way and focus on staying clear with yourself, and knowing what motivates you and why. There is one other question, which is this: on what ground do you build your self-esteem?

Hello Sagittarius — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — It’s time to update your resume and portfolio. This counts if you’re the CEO of a multinational company, a sophomore art student or anything in between. I suggest you focus carefully on what you’ve accomplished since 2009. Speaking of that particular year, you may have done more than you think; it was not a ‘lost year’, as you may be inclined to think — though I suggest that you do a careful, month-by-month review and see what changed. Meanwhile, the process of updating your resume will provide a forum for you to track everything you’ve achieved and accomplished. The first draft of this list needs to be in long format, including such activities as helping others with their career or business ventures, any activity that raised your public profile, and people you met who had an influence in your life. Then, tighten it up for public consumption. I think there’s a good possibility that in this stretch of time, you ended one volume of your professional history and began another. Now, as you proceed, you need this organized inquiry into what you’ve accomplished as a foundation to stand on, and as a reminder of what is possible.

Hello Capricorn — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — It’s less than one month before your ruling planet Saturn embarks on its journey across Scorpio, your solar 10th house. That’s the one associated with responsibility (both personal and public), reputation and honoring your true calling in life. This is indeed the time to review your past goals, and consider what your new objectives are. Yet I suggest you focus, and be discerning. They just about all fall under the general heading ‘easier said than done’, so I suggest that you reduce your plans down to the ones that motivate you the very most. You will need the extra energy provided by the desire to do whatever you’re doing for its own sake. When the time comes, that always provides more drive than the obligation to do something. Also, I would share with you one rarely stated fact about success. When you do succeed, you’re going to be doing a lot of whatever you’re succeeding at. So choose from among those activities that you wouldn’t mind doing 12 hours a day for a while. Usually, that translates to what you want to do, rather than what you’re allegedly supposed to do.

Hello Aquarius — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — You have a reasonably clear view — and a clear understanding — of who someone in your life is, and what they represent to you. Listen carefully over the next few days as information comes out that provides additional depth and a sense of the life path that this person is on. Meanwhile, what I suggest you track carefully are the ways you notice you have some influence over both the person in question, and the ‘space’ that is created by the encounter, and how this interplays with your deeply personal interior space. Be aware that you need a room of your own, a place within yourself that belongs to you and you only. I mention this now because at the moment, you’re susceptible to some infiltration, right when you need the most influence over what happens within what I will call your sacred precinct. There are things that you can share all the time, there are things that you can share sometimes, and there are a few that are meant for you alone. Be aware of which is which.

Hello Pisces — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

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The Most Wanted Man in the World

Dear Planet Waves Reader:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top-Secret Chart Reveals a Real-Life Revolutionary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eruption of Self-Awareness: Chiron and Eris

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

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

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

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

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

Saturn Opposite Neptune: The Shapeshifter

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

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

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

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

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

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

Logos and Atlantis: The Word Abused, and Revealed

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

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

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

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

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

Yours & truly,

Eric Francis

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

 

And for our next act…the Sagittarius New Moon

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Planet Waves

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

Aries (March 20-April 19)
You have seen the power of negotiation, and you’ve seen what happens when you disregard certain communication protocols. Yet your quest is to be a sincere person, and you may be reviled by the notion that you have to be two-faced as a means of social lubrication. Circumstances of your life, particularly of your professional life, are calling on you to be direct and to take authority. I would suggest the following: be direct with yourself first. If you know the lay of the land, and have a sense of who is playing what game, you will feel less defensive; that means you’ll be more receptive to information. Second, you don’t actually have to say much. One technique is to ask people what they know rather than telling them what you know. You will learn something along the way, people you’re working with will have the sense that you’re listening, and then you will be in a better position to have your knowledge be your point of authority. So gather your information, assemble the pieces and make sure you use your power judiciously.
Aries Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

 

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
Be aware of a tendency to think that your faith rules the world. It may rule your world, and that would be enough, though I suggest you back away from any possibility of being an evangelist. Faith teaches in silence, through actions and through the passage of time. Your mere awareness of something is an influence. The thoughts you think have potency beyond what you have ever imagined. This is particularly true for how they influence your own state of mind, emotions and sense of the future. Obsession is not certainty, though you may be riveted on a particular subject that you cannot let go of. That represents energy, and it may represent ideas, and an appropriate and useful response is to focus your mind in a creative and constructive way. Remember that you cannot control the future, but you can certainly influence it. One gift of the present moment is that you have enough experience to not make the same mistakes again, particularly in a relationship.
Taurus Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.
Gemini (May 20- June 21)
You may feel like you’re in over your head with a situation that, at the moment, seems to have total power over your life. It may be a sexual obsession, it may be a fear that you have no choice but to encounter, or it may be coming to the realization that someone has tremendous influence over you. I suggest you think of the situation in terms of an agreement or a contract. This will be a way of processing your emotions through a rational filter. What have you actually agreed to? What has someone else committed to? And how does the current situation reflect these facts? You may determine that the facts and your emotional state have no apparent relationship; that your intensity is not grounded in reality. No matter how powerful someone may seem, or a situation may appear to be, the person you need to negotiate your freedom with is yourself.
Gemini Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

 

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
You have boundless energy at your disposal, and it’s yours to direct toward healing, productivity or pleasure. The three have more in common than you may realize; anything that nourishes one of these concepts in truth feeds all three. We’re trained to think that anything meaningful has to be done in a big way; that at any moment of decision, you must ‘figure out what to do with the rest of your life’. What you do these weeks may indeed influence the rest of your life, and it may resolve something you’ve carried around for a long time. Yet the way that will happen is a supreme focus on the present moment. What you want is a state of wellbeing now, rather than something deferred to the future. That is nothing more or less than being present in your experience. It’s about recognizing that your whole life has led to this moment, and that this moment is the portal to your future. Stand in that doorway and feel the energy move through you and around you.

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

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
This weekend’s New Moon in your fellow fire sign Sagittarius is designed to open up your sense of what is possible, if you apply your creativity. I suggest you let your curiosity lead the way to direct experience, rather than theory. You do not need to exert much in the way of effort, or think of this as requiring anything special; curiosity is powerful and it’s inherently creative. Remember that all creative energy is connected to sexual energy. I recognize that not everyone ‘agrees’ with this, but for evidence I would merely point to existence itself. A little of this energy can go a long way; the small choices you make now have an extra potent ability to help you create your life, experimenting and experiencing and feeling your way through existence. I suggest you keep in mind what it is you want to create; hold a vision for yourself and the life that you want.

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

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
Subtle adjustments you make to your emotional patterning may result in significant progress toward healing. We typically want to ‘fix everything’ about ourselves, without recognizing that patterns develop and evolve over time; the most meaningful part of the process is initiating them and gradually maintaining them into existence. This is particularly meaningful where improving your health and wellbeing are concerned. For you that comes down to courting an inner sense of safety. I recognize that we are under the constant influence to not feel safe. We are given reasons to feel threatened nearly all the time. It would help if you removed those external influences, so that this way you can tune into the ones in your mind: those messages are the ones you need to respond to specifically by wanting something else, something better; a safe place within your own thoughts.

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

Libra (Sep. 22 - Oct. 23)
Consider yourself on the verge of a decision, which involves whether you will embrace yourself fully; whether you will give (to yourself) or withhold (from yourself) the love that you seek. This is the question that lurks inside the drama of what we call love. Here, the phrasing is clear and the choice is simple: and it depends on no other person. I recognize this presents a kind of metaphysical problem. If ‘how we feel about ourselves creates our experience of relationships’, does that mean we control them? Obviously not: there are other options. When we resonate with ourselves in a way that is true or loving, we create a resonance field, and we draw or repel appropriate people. The message of the current charts is simple — how you feel about yourself is the most significant metric of how you will experience existence. And you have reason to feel good; you’ve been practicing.

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

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
Gender and sex (as in the many forms of interplay of male and female, inner and outer) are fascinating, beautiful things to explore and play with, don’t you agree? There are so many shades and hues of attraction, empathy and simpatico; so many gradations of distaste and repulsion. With Venus now back in your sign after the recent retrograde phase, you have a strong emotional magnet pulling you inward toward a mysterious other within yourself. The world is rampant with drama of ‘the other’ being an external. It has an all-consuming quality, at the same time there are a diversity of taboos on taking that whole discussion to an inner plane. There is a force of nature that exists within yourself, and it has some quality of being your polar opposite; in truth it is what you seek in others, that has so often been the source of so much drama — and that aspect of you is now making itself known.

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

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22)
It’s time to have full confidence in your talent. There comes a time when, after years of development, you take the leap into the truth of that notion. You know that what you create is fully worthy of existence in the universe. You are witness to its independent life beyond you, and I believe that deep down you are confident that it will support you economically. I would emphasize that these are recognitions now available on the emotional rather than the intellectual level — things that work better when you feel them. It is one thing to know them in your mind; it’s another to feel the truth in your body, something akin to balancing on a bicycle. Remember, on a bicycle you can go nearly anywhere, but not everywhere at once.

Sagittarius audio coming soon!

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
So much of what you want seems to depend on others — and so much of your experience the past year or two has been about learning how to depend on yourself. You might think of what you’re learning as a form of autonomy. That is true, to a point; for as long as we need someone to change the oil on our car, we’re not really autonomous. But what you are acquiring is sufficient independence to explore interdependence. That is different than codependency, which is an unhealthy overreliance on the other. The associations you’re cultivating at this time will form the basis of community based on actual mutual interests and common ground. There is the potential for creating something far greater than the sum of the parts; human alchemy of the first order, for which you are a catalyst.

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

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
You have plenty to celebrate. It’s true that you also have your moments of fear and doubt, and I can empathize if you feel that your shadow runs a little deeper and darker than some others you know. That means your light will shine equally bright and moreover, that you are moving steadily along the path to fully integrating the many facets of who you are. But setting your spiritual psychology aside, I can tell you this. You are in a remarkable moment for making your existence known, and for influencing your community (and that may include community of interest, circle of friends or something similar). Though I’m not sure what you do with your life, I can offer you this — you are onto something significant, and some idea that has the power to shape your world, if not the world. Speak clearly rather than loudly. Don’t worry about the ‘ultimate effect’ of what you put out. Simply trust.

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

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
This is a moment filled with great potential for you, in the aspect of life that some call ‘career’. I prefer to use other concepts — such as expressing your life purpose, making your way in the world, and shining in your chosen field. But let’s keep cause and effect in the right order; that’s the mission of any true seeker. It is who you are that is doing the expressing, making your way or shining your light. There is no ‘thing’ you are after, and you are existing and growing rather than careering. Existence as you are experiencing it now is a process of original invention. You are becoming something new every day and indeed moment. This is unnerving for some, who need a reference point to the past in order to feel secure. You have no need for such a pretense; this moment is offering you everything — but it’s an intense, potent and moreover rare moment. Be mindful. Be present. Be real, and gently so.
Pisces Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.

December: Sagittarius Sun, and an Intriguing Solstice

Dear Planet Waves Reader:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wishing you a brilliantly creative holiday season,

Eric Francis

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

 

An international confrontation: Korea situation astrology

Dear Friend and Reader:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Eric Francis

 

Weekly Horoscopes, Monthly Horoscopes, Astrology News, Daily Astrology Blog, Birthday Reports

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

Dear Planet Waves Subscriber:

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

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

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

Free Access to Cosmic Confidential This Weekend

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

Planet Waves

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

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

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

And you’re invited to take advantage of this.

Yours & truly,

Eric Francis

 

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for December 2010

Aries (March 20-April 19)

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

Aries Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.
Taurus (April 19- May 20)

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

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

Gemini (May 20- June 21)

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

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

Cancer (June 21- July 22)

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

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

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)

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

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

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)

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

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

Libra (Sep. 22 - Oct. 23)

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

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

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)

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

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

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22)

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

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)

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

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

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)

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

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

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)

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

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