Dear Friend and Reader:

Today the Sun is square Uranus, an aspect that describes surprising or spontaneous new beginnings. The Sun continues to move through the remnants of the cardinal grand cross, including the Uranus-Pluto square that is the heart of the matter.

If you’ve been wanting to start something all year, now is the time. If you’ve run into diversions and distractions, get whatever was delayed started now.

Though there may not be antiwar protests in the streets, this is still a revolutionary moment. Sun in Cancer making the square to Uranus says don’t take your ‘comfort zone’ too seriously. You grow by pushing, luring or guiding yourself into new territory. And sometimes what appears to be circumstance does it for you. Sun-Uranus can have an in-your-face quality, and it can also be subtle. Yet it’s always about something new.

This often involves a stretch both of your mind and of your emotional confidence. Most things that get accomplished are begun before some official notion of ‘readiness’ is attained. Therefore pay attention to your environment, and embrace the unexpected. And one word of caution — don’t fall for the glamor of technology, fame or ‘instant success’ — stick to your core idea. Stay close to your art, to your vision, to the feeling behind the music.

Today’s Sun-Uranus aspect leads to Saturday’s Full Moon in Capricorn. This is the last burst of the cardinal cross of 2014. I’ve covered that in detail in Monday’s daily and will have more to say on tonight’s Planet Waves FM and Thursday evening’s edition, with your 12-sign interpretations.

Moonshine Horoscope is in transition to a new writing team and we anticipate having that ready for you right at the moment of the Full Moon, which is at 7:25 am EDT Saturday, July 12 (11:25 UTC). That horoscope will come right about then in a special mailing.

Tonight’s Planet Waves FM is scheduled for 5 pm EDT (21:00 UTC). My musical guest will be the brilliant Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. (I know, it’s a corny name — I was making fun of it till I walked in the door of BSP and in a matter of minutes was dancing in a pheromone-drenched frenzy in front of the stage.) Tonight’s program will focus on Saturday’s Full Moon chart and the transition into the new astrology of 2014 — the part featuring Jupiter in Leo met by Mars in Scorpio, or said another way, a lot of passion.

Speaking of: I will be unfolding this brand new aspect pattern for all 12 signs and rising signs in my midyear reading, called Good as Gold. If you have not already noticed, 2014 is really two years in one, with version 2.0 beginning right about now. With all of the inner planets direct, Jupiter entering a fire sign and Mars coming home to its native Scorpio, a whole new concept of life and of astrology is reaching out to us.

Good as Gold will explore the relationship between self-esteem, creativity and money. The three are so closely interwoven that in a successful person they are indistinguishable. While you’re on the way there, these elements need to be understood one at a time, as specific concepts, goals or challenges.

I will provide ideas, strategies, motivational rants (my speciality) and ideas I’ve learned in therapy to get the blocks out of the way, access your courage, and invoke your vision for yourself.

How do you manage the transition out of something old that is not really working and into something new, with the simultaneous demands of a learning curve, balancing yourself financially and staying inspired? These and other things are what I will be exploring.

Good as Gold is available for pre-order now. We’re introducing this at $39.95 for all 12 signs. As usual, we start with the lowest price for all 12, gradually raise the price, then sell one reading for about what we were initially asking for all 12. The first price increase will be Friday. So now is the time to get the best rate on the whole package, so you can listen to your Sun, Moon and rising signs, and check in with the readings for your collaborators.

Here is that link.

I’ll catch you tonight over at Planet Waves FM.

Lovingly,

Planet Waves (ISSN 1933-9135) is published each Tuesday morning and Thursday afternoon in Kingston, New York by Planet Waves, Inc. Annual basic subscription rate: $99/year. Core community membership: $149/year. Editor and Publisher: Eric Francis Coppolino. Business Manager: Chelsea Bottinelli. Web Developer: Anatoly Ryzhenko. Copy Editor: Jessica Keet. Research, Writing and Editing: Planet Waves is produced by a team consisting of Fe Bongolan, Brendan Merritt, Amy Elliott, Judith Gayle, Kelly Janes, Elizabeth Michaud, Amanda Moreno, Amanda Painter, Casey Smith, Carol van Strum, Len Wallick, Lizanne Webb and Chad Woodward. Special thanks to the Fact Checkers List, and to our main astrology fact-checker Alex Miller, and Amanda, who goes over all their suggestions. Aunt Josie Forever!

Dear Friend and Reader:

As you’ve no doubt heard by now, five Roman Catholic men on the Supreme Court determined that for-profit corporations can have religious views, but only when it comes to women’s reproductive rights. Hobby Lobby won its lawsuit, and now corporations have the “religious right” to deny women health insurance that covers certain kinds of contraceptives, if the corporation’s owners think they’re sinful.

The Court of Emperor Frederick II in Palermo by Arthur Georg von Ramberg. Frederick was one of the most powerful Holy Roman Emperors, most of whom were defenders of Christianity, armed and ready for war.

All nine justices of the court agreed that Hobby Lobby’s religious views were sincere, despite the fact that the company has $75 million invested in companies that manufacture the kinds of pregnancy prevention and abortion drugs that the owners claim to object to the most.

Were I writing this in a novel, I would be pleased with myself for coming up with something so ironic, witty and daunting, but this is not fiction. It’s another warning of where our society is headed.

The good news is that the decision came out just one day before Mercury stationing direct, which happened this morning at 8:50 am EDT (12:50 UTC). I’ll have more to say about the Hobby Lobby ruling and the current astrology in an edition of Planet Waves FM that will post at about 5 pm EDT (21:00 UTC).

In a little while, I’m about to wrap up recording the Cancer birthday reading. That will be ready Wednesday. It’s still available at the pre-order price of $29.95 (included with All-Access Pass memberships). Speaking of, we are currently offering a six-month All-Access Pass for half price.

And speaking of reduced-price readings, The Mars Effect (12 signs of audio and written astrology, for Sun and rising sign) is currently available for half price till Friday (but it retains its full value, as the readings are every bit as relevant now as they were back in January).

Next week I’ll be back with information about new classes, community meetings and some fun astrology products for the summer.

I’m going to keep this letter short today — I have some additional reading to do from the Hobby Lobby decision, particularly from the dissent by Ruth Bader Ginsberg, which is a masterpiece. In Thursday night’s edition I plan to have a reading of the United States Sibly chart, something of an annual tradition at Planet Waves, and your weekly horoscope.

For Planet Waves FM listeners — catch you at about 5 pm EDT (21:00 UTC).

Lovingly,

Planet Waves (ISSN 1933-9135) is published each Tuesday morning and Thursday afternoon in Kingston, New York by Planet Waves, Inc. Annual basic subscription rate: $99/year. Core community membership: $149/year. Editor and Publisher: Eric Francis Coppolino. Business Manager: Chelsea Bottinelli. Web Developer: Anatoly Ryzhenko. Copy Editor: Jessica Keet. Research, Writing and Editing: Planet Waves is produced by a team consisting of Amy Elliot, Elizabeth Michaud, Amanda Moreno, Amanda Painter, Casey Smith, Carol van Strum, Len Wallick and Chad Woodward. Special thanks to the Fact Checkers List, which goes over each edition on Thursday night — and to our main astrology fact-checker Alex Miller, and Amanda, who goes over all their suggestions.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Casey Kasem, the voice of “American Top 40” (and one of the most recognizable voices in American radio) died Sunday, and I’ve prepared a reading of his chart in tonight’s Planet Waves FM. His chart is focused on what most people find to be the most challenging house to read, or to live with — the 12th, which seems to exist behind a veil but also sometimes magnifies things to larger-than-life proportions (Madonna is another example).

Mithra-Varuna, the pre-Vedic deities, are associated with the minor planet Varuna, covered in today’s edition of Daily Astrology.

In current astrology, I check in with Mercury retrograding into Gemini (where it will be through the remainder of the retrograde), the Sun and Mercury opposite many planets in late Sagittarius, and the Cancer solstice.

In today’s Daily Astrology, I’ve written about Jupiter conjunct Varuna, an event that has not happened since 2002. Varuna is a protector of the righteous and those who uphold the proper functioning of the universe and everything in it. This reminds me of the concept of dharma — acting as if to hold the world together; it’s connected to a much older concept not of correct action, but of upholding the natural order of existence.

In the human realm, that includes honoring contracts, keeping promises and being good for one’s word.

Speaking of the sign Cancer, we are now offering the Cancer birthday reading at its lowest pre-order price. That price is good through Thursday night. I plan to have the reading done early next week.

As the Sun moves through these last degrees of Gemini, there are serious matters brewing in the world. Iraq is once again descending into intra-Muslim civil war, made possible by the United States destabilizing the country when it went to war against Saddam Hussein in 2003.

I learned a new word this week: caliphate, which is an Islamic state led by a supreme religious and political leader. The concept is that it can transcend national boundaries, and that official governments don’t matter. From what I am reading, this is the goal of the current uprisings in both Syria and Iraq.

Hobby Lobby lobbies for a hobby.

It’s also the goal of some religious activists here in the United States. We have a Supreme Court decision due, perhaps today, in the Hobby Lobby case (Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.). That’s the one about how corporations allegedly have the religious freedom of individuals, and should be able to prevent their female employees from having health insurance policies that cover birth control because it’s presumed by them to be a form of abortion.

(This, apart from the fact that the Hobby Lobby corporation has substantial retirement fund investments in drug companies that manufacture birth control and abortion drugs.)

This is an example of a systemic attempt to take ownership of women’s bodies and reproductive freedom on religious grounds (there are no other grounds that could be used to argue this point). The conservative bloc on the Supreme Court has several reasons to go for this, including its tendency to grant personhood rights to corporations and its desire to kiss up to the Christian right wing that put it into place.

But they also know they are opening the door to something really strange if they decide that companies can impose their supposed religious values on one class of employees. We’ve been tracking this case closely for months and are eager to read this decision, whatever it may say.

It’s going to be an interesting week in the run-up to the solstice, which is Saturday. I’ll have more for you when I return with a new edition of Planet Waves on Thursday night.

Lovingly,

Planet Waves (ISSN 1933-9135) is published each Tuesday morning and Thursday evening in Kingston, New York by Planet Waves, Inc. Annual basic subscription rate: $99/year. Core community membership: $149/year. Editor and Publisher: Eric Francis Coppolino. Business Manager: Chelsea Bottinelli. Web Developer: Anatoly Ryzhenko. Copy Editor: Jessica Keet. Research, Writing and Editing: Planet Waves is produced by a team consisting of Hillary Ghee, Elizabeth Michaud, Amanda Moreno, Amanda Painter, Amy Silver, Carol van Strum, Len Wallick and Chad Woodward. Special thanks to the Fact Checkers List, which goes over each edition on Thursday night — and to our main astrology fact-checker Alex Miller, and Amanda, who goes over all their suggestions.

Dear Friend and Client:

Seek and you shall find are among my guiding words for astrology. This quote comes from Matthew 7:7. Here it is, in the familiar language of the King James version: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”

Photo by Eric Francis.

I translate this into astrology as an approach to the client and the chart. You will find in either what you’re looking for. Look for trauma and you’ll find trauma. Look for past life commotions and you’ll find those. I prefer to search the chart for gifts, for talents, for distinctive individual qualities. I seek strength and passion, and unlived dreams that are seeking expression now — and usually I find them.

The energy of “seeking” is embodied in Mercury, now retrograde, trine centaur planet Nessus, which I covered in last week’s edition. You may still be getting used to Mercury reversing apparent directions. Mercury will make another trine to Nessus before ingressing Gemini one week from today.

We’re approaching another centaur event — a Full Moon overnight Thursday that’s conjunct centaur planet Pholus. The centaurs almost always act as doorways to new experience, or to unraveling old experience. Pholus in particular is a key to understanding ancestral material. The Full Moon in Sagittarius is also close to a point called Quaoar, which is about one’s family pattern — the dance and the rhythm into which you were born and may take for granted, till you learn to see and hear it.

Our ancestors leave us problems and they bestow gifts. When a centaur is involved, the two will be closely related, and located nearby one another. You will need to be alert for the gifts, and seek them consciously. I’ll have more to say about the Full Moon in tonight’s edition of Planet Waves FM, when I’ll tell the story of the myth of Pholus. This will be an interesting follow-up to last week’s discussion of Nessus (the two myths happen in sequence — though the Pholus story is the prequel).

And I’ll give the Full Moon event one last look in a specially scheduled edition of Planet Waves that will be published Thursday night EDT, a few hours ahead of the exact Moon-Sun opposition. Note, at this time, I anticipate publishing the Friday edition on Thursday evening.

Photo by Eric Francis.

Before that happens, there’s an event to be aware of — the Moon-Saturn conjunction that is exact today. Here is a brief post about that aspect pattern. The upshot is that today, inner material may be as significant as anything in the outer world. Do your best to keep your emotions light, being aware of this potentially heavy influence.

Tuesday evening (tonight) there will be a conference call associated with the Gemini birthday reading. Now each of my birthday readings comes with time to converse with me and share stories with others who have your sign affiliation. The Cancer birthday reading is up next —  and I’m eager to hear your suggestions and questions for what to cover. If you’re born with Cancer Sun, Moon or rising, please email me your thoughts about what you would like to see addressed.

In the next week or so, I’ll be hosting a group conference for Core Community members — our new level of service — to which I will be inviting all subscribers. The theme will be focused on the current Mercury retrograde: How to talk about the impossible. Look for an invitation in your inbox.

On a similar theme, I would call your attention to a discussion thread that’s developing on our main blog called An Introspective Question, asking people to share their stories of healing methods that have worked for them, whether as a practitioner or as a client. That is an invitation to use what we know. Many people have studied healing, self-awareness and the mysteries for many years. Now is the time we need to bring our gifts forward and make them available to one another.

The Moonshine horoscope is scheduled for today. There’s been a change in personnel on that column and I have not had a chance to read it. When I do, I’ll send it out in a special mailing.

Thanks for tuning in.

w/ love,

Planet Waves (ISSN 1933-9135) is published each Tuesday and Friday morning in Kingston, New York by Planet Waves, Inc. Annual basic subscription rate: $99/year. Core community membership: $149/year. Editor and Publisher: Eric Francis Coppolino. Business Manager: Chelsea Bottinelli. Web Developer: Anatoly Ryzhenko. Copy Editor: Jessica Keet. Research, Writing and Editing: Planet Waves is produced by a team consisting of Hillary Ghee, Elizabeth Michaud, Amanda Moreno, Amanda Painter, Amy Silver, Carol van Strum, Len Wallick and Chad Woodward. Special thanks to the Fact Checkers List, which goes over each edition on Thursday night — and to our main astrology fact-checker Alex Miller, and Amanda, who goes over all their suggestions.

Dear Friend and Client:

On tonight’s Planet Waves FM, I will be doing a long-planned program on the impact of advertising on our society and on your life. With the Gemini Sun still square Neptune and approaching a square to the Chiron-Borasisi conjunction in Pisces, this seems like the perfect time.

Tonight on Planet Waves FM — UMass Amherst Prof. Sut Jhally, commenting on “Advertising and the End of the World.”

After covering the current astrology — including Mercury about to station retrograde — I will be sharing the work of Sut Jhally, a professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst whose theory of advertising culture inspired me to create a media organization that’s free from commercial advertising.

His theory is simple. Long ago, advertising stopped promoting the qualities and uses of the product being sold and switched to a tactic of promising love, fulfillment, prestige and magical powers (often associated with sex). Of course, you can’t get those things from beer, perfume or cars, but those promises have become the central narrative of our culture. It infests our consciousness and — like it or not — takes over the narratives of our lives. You can stop that, though you have to be aware of it first.

Part two of the theory involves how advertising is used to compensate for an abundance of material goods created by the capitalist system, things that must be sold to keep the manufacturers in business. These are products that most people would not buy unless they were pitched to in ads. So in two ways advertising is destroying the world: it’s fully invaded our psychic space with its false promises and fake images of life, which we think we must live up to; and it’s driving a cycle of consumption and waste that has now come to threaten the Earth’s ability to sustain life.

Laurie Anderson, Gemini with Capricorn Moon, turns 67 this week. I’ll be looking at her chart on Planet Waves FM.

I’ll also be looking at the birth chart of the magnificent Laurie Anderson, who turns 67 this week. I usually post the program by Tuesday at 5 pm EDT. We will send out a reminder shortly after the program posts, or keep an eye on my Facebook page, which tends to be Planet Waves comm central.

In the daily astrology series, I’ve been covering the Mercury-Nessus trine — I’ll be covering that tonight on PW FM as well. In written form, this is in two articles — Mercury Storm, Trine Nessus, and If You Lie, I’ll Swear To It — Or Not. 

In today’s edition, I wrote, “There are many people who live in and on denial; who live in wholly fictional worlds of who they might be and who others should be. This is isolating. Mercury stationing retrograde feels like a point of reckoning. Neither Cancer nor Pisces give up their secrets easily, if only because they’re not easy to translate into words. One thing that might help this process along is the use of I-statements.”

This is an old technique from therapy and the spiritual community. We are still in a radical projection phase, with Mars, the ruler of Aries, in its opposite sign Libra. It is easy to accuse, it’s easy to point fingers, and it’s easy to make into a target those who reveal their inner reality, their pain, their desire.

It’s more challenging, and closer to healing, to speak for yourself, to reveal your own pain, your own desire, your own challenges. In that spirit, I’ve posted an excerpt from an article out of the archives, How To Be Your Own Lover.

I plan to have more about this in this week’s Friday edition.

Lovingly,

Planet Waves (ISSN 1933-9135) is published each Tuesday and Friday morning in Kingston, New York by Planet Waves, Inc. Annual basic subscription rate: $99/year. Core community membership: $149/year. Editor and Publisher: Eric Francis Coppolino. Business Manager: Chelsea Bottinelli. Web Developer: Anatoly Ryzhenko. Copy Editor: Jessica Keet. Research, Writing and Editing: Planet Waves is produced by a team consisting of Hillary Ghee, Elizabeth Michaud, Amanda Moreno, Amanda Painter, Amy Silver, Carol van Strum, Len Wallick and Chad Woodward. Special thanks to the Fact Checkers List, which goes over each edition on Thursday night — and to our main astrology fact-checker Alex Miller, and Amanda, who goes over all their suggestions.