Dear Friend and Reader:

June will be a big month for the water signs. That’s good news for everyone, unless your only friend is a cactus (and they love water too, just not too much of it). Water is the most delicate element, essential to supporting life on our planet. It’s as basic as oxygen, and it’s drying out, being polluted and fracked out of existence. Yet when the astrology gets wet, I think that everyone is happier — and that’s what happens soon.

This April 2006 photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope shows a second red, oval storm to the left of the original Red Spot. Dubbed “Red Spot Jr.,” it is about the same diameter as Earth and was formed when smaller, whitish oval-shaped storms merged and changed color. At the time, scientists speculated that Red Spot Jr. is evidence for climate change on Jupiter. Photo: NASA.

Among the main events of the next few weeks is Jupiter moving from Gemini to Cancer, completing a grand water trine with Saturn in Scorpio and both Chiron and Neptune in Pisces. The Sun and other planets will be passing through Cancer as well, filling up our spiritual reservoirs.

Let’s start in the current moment and take the story more or less in order (note, all dates are based on EDT).

Eclipses of spring end with the Sagittarius lunar eclipse that happens Saturday, May 25 at 12:25 am EDT. This will be the last of the eclipses along the Gemini/Sagittarius angle — the unusual third eclipse in the current cycle is a holdover from the prior (Gem/Sag) cycle. Through 2014 the Taurus/Scorpio axis will host eclipses (along with the Aries/Libra axis); the next Taurus/Scorpio eclipse heats up in November.

June 2013 emphasizes the water theme of this year — a theme of making contact with one’s feeling body without being overwhelmed by it. That’s always the thing about emotions; with the other thing being the extent to which they are being corrupted by advertising imagery, clearly among the top spiritual issues of our time in history. When astrology emphasizes the water signs, you will feel more, and more deeply, and then at the same time be subject to manipulation.

The realm of feeling, of emotion, of body sensation, is different from the realm of intellect, concept and mental control. Indeed what happens on the level of water can subvert or perhaps submerge what we experience in the mental environment. It doesn’t need to — emotions and ideas can coexist, and if the forthcoming astrology is any indication, we need to figure out how to do that.

Photo by Amanda Painter.

Mercury enters Cancer on May 31, where it will perform its retrograde maneuver between June 26 and July 20. It’ll remain in Cancer through its second shadow phase and then finally enter Leo on Aug. 8.

That’s a long time for Mercury to be in any one sign, especially a water sign; yet it’s also the second of three times that Mercury will spend more than two months in a water sign this year (the first was in Pisces earlier in 2013 and the third will be when it’s in Scorpio later in the year).

On June 2, Venus enters Cancer — still in a loose conjunction with Mercury. That conjunction will come back into focus later in the month.

June 8 is the Gemini New Moon, exact at 11:56 am. That’s synchronous with a sparky aspect, Mercury square Uranus, happening just a few hours later.

June 19 is also a special day — the Sun is conjunct Jupiter in Gemini. That won’t happen again till 2036. Yes, it should happen again in 12 years, but the Sun-Jupiter conjunction skips Gemini the next time Jupiter is in that sign. This is also our farewell to Jupiter in Gemini for this cycle.

On June 21, the Sun enters Cancer, which is the solstice. This is an Aries Point event; the Sun is square the first degree of the zodiac (i.e., the Aries Point), which means that we’ll all be standing at the intersection of the personal and the collective. That’s what this degree does, and it’s very sensitive. So sensitive in fact that the ingresses of Mercury and Venus earlier in the month may have a similar effect.

Photo by Amanda Painter.

Because this is happening in the style of a water sign, experiences and events will have a deeper emotional influence than usual, and in addition to describing the emotional realm, water sign energy also reaches into what we think of as psychic — that is, behind-the-scenes communication.
It’s also good for empathy and understanding what others are going through by feeling it rather than needing to have it explained.

On June 25, Jupiter enters Cancer. This is yet another Aries Point event, as Jupiter will be square the first degree of the zodiac. This happens with the Cancer Sun trine Neptune in Pisces, and Mercury very close to stationing retrograde in Cancer.

Jupiter will remain in Cancer until it ingresses Leo on July 16, 2014. Plenty of water passes under the bridge between now and then, and fortunately we will have happy, old Jupiter to keep us company the whole time.

On June 26, Mercury stations retrograde, which will last through July 20, and as mentioned, Mercury ingresses Leo on Aug. 8.

This is a lot of water for one year, and a whole lot of water for one month.

Lovingly,

Editor’s Note: News briefs below are researched and written by a team consisting of me, Liam Carey, Amanda Painter, Susan Scheck and Carol van Strum. — efc

 

What Do You Believe In? Or Do You?

Saturday there’s an eclipse of the Moon in Sagittarius, the sign of faith. This is the Sagittarius Full Moon, and the sensation of the event building is a little like an approaching thunderstorm. The air is heavy with some odd psychic vibe, which it might be with a Full Moon but which is especially palpable when there’s an eclipse.

This photo of a partial lunar eclipse is striking, but it is not the type of eclipse we’re getting Friday night into Saturday; that will be a barely perceptible penumbral eclipse. Photo by Anthony Ayiomamitis.

The Sagittarius part of the story describes a question, in particular a question about a belief. If you’re the deep type, it can take you to the level of what you have faith in.

This is the last of three eclipses of our current season — and the last of the eclipses across the Gemini-Sagittarius axis that date back about two years. We’ve just had two eclipses along Taurus-Scorpio, which is the new axis; this is the encore of Gemini-Sagittarius.

As such it may relate to an old question that’s coming up again. To me that question is: what do you believe in? The answer to this question has more influence than you might think. In many ways our beliefs are the filter through which we perceive very nearly everything.

The problem with beliefs is that they are often driven by security needs rather than by what we perceive as real, or as necessary. If you eat meat, you have to believe that eating meat is OK. If your husband is a staunch conservative, you may need to believe in conservative values in order to meet an emotional or environmental need.

My take on this eclipse is that it (that is, the circumstances it describes) may prompt you to question something you thought was true, or that you thought mattered to you. You may find yourself unable to believe in what you know is not true for you. If you follow that in (as they say in some kinds of therapy) you may find yourself with an actual question on your hands — a question of faith.

Chart section showing the conjunction of Mercury, Venus and Jupiter in Gemini during the eclipse. Also shown (l-r): south lunar node, Mars and Pallas Athene in Taurus; Sun in Gemini; and far right, Black Moon Lilith. View the full chart here.

There’s a new idea on the horizon — in fact many of them, depicted by the triple conjunction of Venus, Mercury and Jupiter at the time of this eclipse. This conjunction gives some relief from the persistent questioning that’s been leading up to the Full Moon eclipse.

Yes it’s in Gemini, although clarity (Mercury), substance (Venus) and wisdom (Jupiter) are all available there in varying combinations.

One subject described by the chart involves what we do with persistent fear. That’s a fact of the times we’re living in, where What to Be Scared Of is being broadcast on every channel. Anyone who watches TV or follows news on the ‘Net was treated this week to a constant vision of a town shredded by a tornado.

With or without a topic to graft onto, many people are caught in some form of persistent anxiety, fear or panic, and spend a lot of their time dealing with it. Much of this fear stems from various efforts to control — the ones exerted on us, and the ones that we exert on the world, often out of necessity. When that control spins out of control, one approach is to escape, or to try to — and that’s exactly the pattern that Saturday’s eclipse is here to awaken us to.

 

C’mon People Now: Another Fine Week in the Anti-Sixties

The IRS vs. Tea Party debacle reached a new point of absurdity (three heads have rolled so far, and IRS officials are taking the 5th) the same week we learned that U.S. drones had killed four American citizens and that a FOX News reporter was charged under the Espionage Act for saying something about North Korea — shortly after a tornado took out 1,200 homes, three schools and killed 24 people in Moore, Oklahoma — which was the same week that a British military officer was killed by cleaver-wielding, allegedly pro-Muslim ‘activists’ in London, and Pres. Obama took to the airwaves, saying it was getting on time to consider ending the War on Terror.

Medea Benjamin, founder of Code Pink, speaks to Obama from the press area during his speech Thursday at National Defense University.

Just to refresh your memory about this week’s astrology, Uranus and Pluto on Monday made their third of seven squares. This is the ongoing 2012-era aspect, which lasts through 2015 (and in reality has effects spanning between approximately 2008 and 2018 or so).

This aspect is part of the same cycle of astrology that sparked off what we think of as the Sixties — that was the Uranus-Pluto conjunction. If you ever wondered how The Beatles got from “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” to “I Am The Walrus” in just three short years, that would be Uranus-Pluto.

Nearly 50 years later, those same two planets are now at first quarter phase, which can spark up change, progress and chaos similar to the conjunction. Similar, but different — the conjunction happened in Virgo, the sign of ‘I want to be the best nurse ever, squish my toes in the mud and adopt all the homeless kittens’.

The current square is happening from Aries to Capricorn — more assertive signs that (at least in public life, and sometimes in natal charts) are associated with ambition, aggression and at times, militancy.

Speaking of: Obama spoke Thursday at National Defense University (NDU), which I bet you’ve never heard of. It’s a Defense Department-operated college for conquerers. Its students and faculty must have taken it hard when Obama told them, “America is at a crossroads. We must define the nature and scope of this struggle [the War on Terror], or else it will define us. We have to be mindful of James Madison’s warning that, ‘No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare’.”

Medea Benjamin of Code Pink being ushered out of National Defense University after heckling President Obama.

He said it was time to close Guantanamo and lamented that inmates on hunger strike were being force fed (on his orders, which he didn’t mention). He spoke of our freedom and our liberty and lots of other beautiful things.

This speech is being hailed as historic, and Obama’s message was presumably sweet music to the ears of anyone who is opposed to the state of continual warfare that, depending on how you measure, goes back to 2001 or 1991 or 1964 or 1941 or 1492. But just as the nation was being lulled to sleep by the president’s honey-tongue promise to consider the possibility of potentially ending the permanent state of war, the voice of Code Pink founder Medea Benjamin intruded on the dream.

“Excuse me, will you speak out about the innocents killed by the United States? What about the hundreds of innocent people we are killing with our drone strikes in Pakistan and in Yemen and Somalia? I speak out on behalf of those innocent victims,” she asked.

Benjamin got into the room on the press list, and at least on three separate occasions interrupted the president.

Here’s a partial transcript, though for the full effect it’s really better to watch the video.

MEDEA BENJAMIN: Excuse me, President Obama —

OBAMA: So — let me finish, ma’am. So today, once again —

MEDEA BENJAMIN: There are 102 people on a hunger strike. These are desperate people.

OBAMA: I’m about to address it, ma’am, but you’ve got to let me speak. I’m about to address it.

MEDEA BENJAMIN: You’re our Commander-In-Chief —

OBAMA: Let me address it.

Two things about this chart — first, the 10th house cusp is quite close to the mysterious next-to-last degree of Gemini, which strings together many of the strange events of the past 12 years. That’s the government angle — and the point occupying 28+ Gemini is the Black Moon Lilith, a kind of radical feminine energy that represents Medea Benjamin. Also, note the aspect between Jupiter and Eris. Jupiter is at 22+ Gemini and Eris is at 22+ Aries. That’s the steady, articulate, don’t miss one word, throw your body into the machine presentation that the world saw. But the key energy is Eris — the one-woman protest. Sometimes it works — she definitely got her message across.

MEDEA BENJAMIN: — you can close Guantanamo Bay.

OBAMA: Why don’t you let me address it, ma’am.

MEDEA BENJAMIN: There’s still prisoners —

OBAMA: Why don’t you sit down and I will tell you exactly what I’m going to do.

MEDEA BENJAMIN: That includes 57 Yemenis.

[Obama continued for a while, then she interrupted him again.]

MEDEA BENJAMIN: How about Abdulmutallab — locking up a 16-year-old — is that the way we treat a 16-year old? [Inaudible] — can you take the drones out of the hands of the CIA? Can you stop the signature strikes killing people on the basis of suspicious activities?

OBAMA: We’re addressing that, ma’am.

[By this time she’s being dragged out of the room by security, but she keeps speaking clearly.]

MEDEA BENJAMIN: — Will you apologize to the thousands of Muslims that got killed — will you compensate the innocent families? — that will make us safer here at home. I love my country. I love the rule of law. You are making us less safe. Keeping people in indefinite detention in Guantanamo is making us less safe. Abide by the rule of law. You’re a constitutional lawyer.”

If you’re wondering why I call our era the Anti-Sixties, it’s because Medea Benjamin staged a one-woman protest; otherwise there would have been no protest. Nobody else in the room spoke up. Nobody stood up. Granted, it was at National Defense University, not U.C. Berkeley, but we see a lot of these one-man or one-woman protests, while everyone just watches.

What’s interesting is that I would imagine that everyone knew exactly what she was talking about. I felt like I was hearing my own voice in the room, speaking truth to power.

It’s getting a little late to do the chart, but I would like to include it just so you can see it, and I will cover it soon. It’s a beautiful chart. I would point out one thing — the very top of the chart has the MC (10th house cusp) spearing right through that mysterious zone in the horoscope, very late Gemini, where we see the charts of many, many things that should not really be related but somehow are: Sept. 11, the Dec. 26, 2004 quake and tsunami, Wikileaks, Fukushima and a diversity of other events that I covered in the article Here At the Edge of the World. It’s the degree of the conspirators and the whisetleblowers as well.

 

Occupy the 8th House!

Sometimes the themes covered by the 8th house in astrology can feel strangely diverse, now that western culture no longer practices giving brides dowries and women are allowed to own property. But a pair of stories this week illustrate just how cozy sex, money and banking really are — and just how hypocritical we are as a culture.

Wouldn’t you give Chanel Preston a loan? Look at that sweet face! PR photo by Glenn Francis.

Over at DodsonandRoss.com, Carlin Ross — business partner of self-sex revolutionary Betty Dodson — shone some light into a new corner of banking industry bullshit. It seems that sometimes people working in the porn industry — which is legal — get turned down for basic banking services like business loans on ‘moral’ grounds.

“Chanel Preston went public when her bank opened an account in her company’s name then closed it the next day when she admitted working in the adult industry. You so know that someone in the bank pulled up her web cam site and they spent all afternoon watching clips before revoking her account,” writes Ross.

Ross also points out that banks are happy to do business with Fortune 100 companies like GE that have holdings in the adult entertainment industry, but choose only to go after the immediate producers. These same people somehow find nothing ‘morally’ wrong with corporations that pollute the environment or train people to kill.

Contrast Chanel Preston’s story with the rally outside the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., on Monday to protest the government’s failure to prosecute big banks for screwing millions of homeowners and basically causing a recession five years ago from which many people have yet to recover.

“A group of demonstrators with underwater mortgages helped barricade the Justice Department building’s front doors,” reported Democracy Now! “At least 17 demonstrators were arrested, but some managed to spend the night outside to continue their protest today.”

The 8th house is also the house of secrets, power, contracts and jealousy. How much more of this do we need to go through before we collectively figure out that sex is not a secret; banking should be about ethical exchange, not moral control; denying loans for porn stars is more about jealousy and repressed desire than any kind of high ground; and — most importantly — people have, and need to exercise, their power.

It’s time to Occupy the 8th House — and set it in order.

 

March, and Be the Change You Wish to See

Tomorrow, a worldwide March Against Monsanto will take place to protest the biotech giant’s stranglehold on the worldwide food supply. More than 200,000 activists will gather in about 50 countries, with 400 global marches planned, according to marchagainstmonsanto.com.

The reasons to march are numerous, compelling, and quite literally life or death. March organizers cite the fact that Monsanto’s genetically modified foods can lead to serious health conditions such as the development of cancer tumors, infertility and birth defects, and that they are extremely harmful to the environment. Neocotinoids — an ingredient in “pesticide cocktails” used on corn and other crops from which bees gather nectar — are widely believed to have caused the decline of the worldwide bee population. (Bees pollinate one-third of the worldwide food supply and are a critical link in the ecological food chain.)

Despite this, Monsanto is a favorite of the U.S. Congress and President Obama. They collectively passed the nicknamed “Monsanto Protection Act” that, among other things, bans courts from halting the sale of Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds. The company also benefits from corporate subsidies that organic and small farmers do not, and enjoys exclusive patenting rights over seeds and genetic makeup — in effect controlling the reproductive processes of nature.

“The rules of change, of activism, of consciousness, and of helping people are being rewritten by you and me, one connection at a time. The new revolution of good is coming from the grass-roots and making its way upward; this bottom-up effect is exactly what those who would like to see us silent are afraid of,” said Nick Bernabe of TheAnti-Media.org, one of the sponsors of the march.

If you want to be on the right side of history — and save the Earth and its creatures — you can find out where your local march is here.

 

GMO Labeling Bill Clears Connecticut State Senate

A bill that would require food made with genetically modified organisms to carry labels cleared the Connecticut state Senate late Tuesday night, 35-1. Its prospects in the House of Representatives are unclear.

“I’m concerned about our state going out on its own on this and the potential economic disadvantage that could cause,” House Speaker Brendan Sharkey said. “I would like to see us be part of a compact with some other states, which would hopefully include one of the bigger states such as New York.”

If the bill passes the House and is signed into law by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, it would not take effect until at least three other states pass similar legislation. GMO labeling legislation is pending in more than a dozen states.

Although the federal government and food and biotech industries claim GMO foods are safe, there’s ample evidence in studies of long-term health issues to say they aren’t.

“This is a public health issue,” Senate President Donald Williams said during the debate. “The step that we are requesting, the mere labeling of food, is a very modest step … but it is a very important one so consumers can take action to protect their health and the health of their children.”

 

Not At All the Way Your Mother Used to Make It

One part seaweed, two parts grass, half a portion of algae, and a handful of lupine seeds; set laser to layer, and press ‘print now’. Wait 30 seconds, remove each layer as it’s printed, fold into desired shape, and eat. Is this the way you’ll make pizza in the future? Possibly, if a NASA-backed project by mechanical engineer Anjan Contractor makes it through.

3-D printer food made from mealworms. Photo: TNO Research.

Contractor’s company, System’s & Materials Research Corp, is designing a prototype 3-D printer that will produce edible ‘food’ products using carbohydrates, proteins and sugars.

The project was commissioned by NASA to explore ways to feed astronauts on long journeys through space.

Contractor also sees a utopian potential for this type of production: ending world hunger. He believes that food will become increasingly more expensive and that most of the world will need to change their concept of what food is.

“I think, and many economists think, that current food systems can’t supply 12 billion people sufficiently, so we eventually have to change our perception of what we see as food,” says Contractor.

What are the side effects of eating 3-D food produced by a printer? This is unknown. Since there is no prototype (Contractor is planning to produce this), there is no way to determine the ultimate benefits or detriments to human (or ecological) health.

This news reminded Planet Waves researcher Carol Van Strum of a fictional satire originally published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1961 called, “The Voice of the Dolphins,” by Leo Szilard. In this story a think tank of dolphins comes up with a process in which algae can be grown anywhere and ends world hunger. The only problem with this development is an unintended side effect: it prevents conception in women. A moral debate ensues over the sin of contraception vs. the need to sustain life, with the Pope ultimately weighing in.

Just some food for thought before a project like this sinks its teeth into the collective.

 

Winner Takes All? No — It Takes All to Be Winners

Mercury (money) and Venus (possessions and value) are conjunct in Gemini for this weekend’s eclipse, and close by is Jupiter, the planet of expansion. You could say there’s an undercurrent of ‘share the wealth’ in the air.

Enter the game Co-opoly, created by the Toolbox for Education and Social Action (TESA) in Northampton, Massachusetts. TESA is a worker-owned cooperative that builds educational resources for social, economic and environmental change movements.

Co-opoly is a genuinely fun board game (Charades! Drawing!) that doubles as a financial literacy tool and an introduction to how small-scale democracy actually works in a co-op to make sure everyone’s needs are met.

“One of the interesting things about Monopoly is that people often promote it as a good way to teach about financial literacy, even though the way you win is by obliterating all of your opponents and leaving them in economic ruin,” says Brian Van Slyke, a worker-owner at TESA, in an interview on Truthout. “The original version was called The Landlord’s Game, and it was used in the Great Depression as an underground game and organizing tool to teach tenants about how they were being ripped off.”

Slyke adds, “In Co-opoly, players come to understand that their interests and needs will not always align — but that they have to work together to survive.”

 

Oklahoma Tornado and The Doors’ Ray Manzarek

In this week’s edition of Planet Waves FM I look at the chart for the tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma, Monday night, developing some thoughts I introduced in a Planet Waves post I published that day. The chart is at that post.

I also look at the chart of Ray Manzarek of The Doors, who died Monday. Ray was an Aquarius with Sagittarius rising; Jim Morrison was a Sagittarius with Aquarius rising, and that can create a strong bond — they were clearly the nucleus of The Doors. Ray was a few years older than the other guys, and brought some grounded wisdom and maturity into the group.

I mention that Saturday, the day of a lunar eclipse, is the March Against Monsanto. Monsanto’s chart data is not published, though I’ve been working on an investigative feature since December and I am familiar with this chart and how it works. The eclipse falls opposite Monsanto’s Sun and right along its MC/IC axis — the meridian, an extremely sensitive point in the chart. So this is a great day for a protest against these scoundrels.

 

Your Monthly Horoscopes — and our Publishing Schedule Notes

The June monthly extended horoscopes are published below in this issue. Inner Space horoscopes for May were published Tuesday, April 30. I recommend reviewing the previous month’s horoscope at the end of the month; you can see May’s monthly horoscope here. We published the Moonshine horoscopes for the Taurus New Moon on Tuesday, May 7. On Tuesday May 21, we published the Moonshine horoscopes for the Sagittarius Full Moon. Note that the longer monthly horoscope is being incorporated into the Friday issue after the Sun has entered a new sign; a new Inner Space is generally emailed on the following Tuesday.

 

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for June 2013, #951 | By Eric Francis

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Most of what we experience in life is shaped by how safe we feel. Those who feel safe also feel confident. They consume less energy on fear, and as a result have more to invest in creativity, productive work and loving experiences. What is interesting about experiencing safety and confidence is that it improves with practice rather than with external reasons or rationales to feel a certain way. It’s worth practicing, especially now that the planets are moving one by one into a position that makes it easier than it’s been in quite a while. When you tune your emotional body to a space of harmony and empathy, you get different results than if you are practicing competition or fear as your daily yoga. Events this month can take you on a journey into a grounded, confident space, and give you a model for how to feel stable there. With each passing event, you can go a little deeper into the calm assurance that you belong in your home, your community and in the world at this time. This is something you can commit to as a conscious choice, then gradually teach yourself and improve your skill, learning what thoughts, communication patterns and ways of connecting emotionally foster your sense of safety. If questions arise, they are most likely to focus on identifying and letting go of emotional thought forms that no longer serve you. Let them go and you will liberate space and energy for what is beautiful, good and true.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Seen one way, the focus of your life is on communicating your feelings, and slipping into a way of being where that comes more easily than you might expect. By ‘feelings’ I mean your point of view, your desires and the sensation of what it’s like to be alive. By ‘communicate’ I mean with others, though more significantly, with yourself. While I would not want to deny anyone consciousness, it often seems like we live in a world where many people have no idea what they feel, and I would say that most humans would be a lot better off if they did. You may, at first, experience the transits this month as magnification or exaggeration. If so, that’s an invitation to pay closer attention to the nuances and the cycles that seem to run your emotional experience. You still seem to have a disagreement with yourself over something, a potential grudge, judgment or inner dilemma where there may indeed be two sides of the story. If so, I suggest you get those two sides into a discussion, perhaps even a negotiation. Do your best to understand both points of view. Neither is strictly true; neither is incorrect; the two added together don’t tally up to the truth. Yet a new depth of understanding can emerge from an extended inner dialog, particularly if it’s gentle and emotionally grounded. This is as much about what is true as it is how you feel about it. Listen to your mind and your body.

 

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Gemini solar return reading is now ready

Dear Gemini Reader:

On Thursday, I recorded your birthday reading for 2013-2014. In this reading, I bring to life the truly beautiful astrology that you’ll be experiencing over the next four seasons. I begin with a discussion of what every Gemini should know about his or her sign, and then I cover a diversity of transits that you’ve read about elsewhere but may not have put into the context of your life.

Eric and his astrology assistant Jonah, who has Virgo Sun and Moon.

These include the presence of Jupiter in your sign now, and then Jupiter’s move into Cancer later in the month. I describe what it means to have Mercury retrograde three times in water signs — covering seven months of the year.

I talk about Pluto going through your 8th house, which is raising all kinds of questions about the role that structure plays in your relationships — and your desire to burst free and express yourself. I cover Saturday’s eclipse of the Moon in Sagittarius, your relationship sign.

I have created my 2013 Gemini reading specifically to help you tap into the very unique energy coming your way — energy with the potential to transform how you feel, think and relate.

The reading will be accurate, informative and fun for Gemini rising and Moon as well. You can listen to a short audio preview here.

Your reading is now ready. If you’ve already purchased or are an all-access member, you should receive an email shortly. We will leave the pre-order price of $19.95 available till Saturday morning, and then raise the price to $29.95.

I know you’ll love this reading. Please do check it out.

Lovingly,

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Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Jupiter leaves your sign this month, though it lands somewhere just as influential for you. You’re living through a phase where you have beautiful, idealistic goals, though turning them into concrete results may be challenging. You may be feeling restlessness in your current work because you crave doing something more meaningful. Jupiter in Cancer will help you establish your understanding of the value of what you do. That, in turn, will help you create or see the circumstances that will make it seem more practical, worthwhile and easier to share. If you live confidently in your understanding that you really do have a gift, that will be compelling to others. Yet what’s more significant is that you focus your vision. It’s one thing to have an ideal or a dream. It’s another to refine that into something specific, and to analyze it into a few beginning steps. You may feel that to do so weighs down the idealism angle, burdening it with practicality. But what we’re describing here is accomplishing something, not wishing you could do so. Therefore, I suggest you put at least one long-held goal or desire to the test of reality this month. I suggest you persist with your plans for 90 days; say, through the end of August, which will take you well past the end of the Mercury retrograde that starts June 26. If what you dream of and want to do is really worth doing, you will have a clue by then.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Jupiter arrives in your sign this month and until it does (on June 25), you may have the sensation that your life is dangling by a string. If you feel that way, trust that it’s made of nice strong fibers and that you’ll have enough of what you need to get you through to the next phase of your life. Jupiter in your sign is an authentic turning point, and it’s one you’ve been waiting for, potentially without realizing it was even coming. You could interpret this as your luck improving, though I think of it more as connecting to yourself, your community and your emotional resources. You might have the experience of seeing the obvious — solutions to problems that have persisted for too long, the strength to make decisions that will improve your life, and most of all, your presence in the world. You would think that walking around in a body would be more than enough to give you a clue you exist, but really this is about resonance with people who surround you. This same astrology will offer you some instruction on how important relationships are to you. That will come into focus as you start to see how much you mean to people and how much mutual benefit is possible. This is a reminder to focus on people to whom you have a real value and with whom you want to share. What you’re seeking is a real meeting. Where the depths of intimacy are concerned, almost doesn’t count.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — Everyone needs a guardian angel, and you have a few. Who are they? People or spiritual entities? You’ll know better as you establish a relationship to them. What you may discover is that they’re sources of intelligence within yourself — what you may think of as your superconscious awareness. Some call this intuition; that’s close enough, though what you have developing now would be a particularly vivid form of it. As the month develops, you may find that this source of knowledge has more to offer you — far more than asking the opinions of others, for example, or watching public trends. Those external sources come with way more uncertainty than you need, and may be a distraction from admitting and acting on what you know to be true. One thing to remember is that your body speaks to you. The feeling you have thinking a thought is as meaningful or more meaningful than the thought itself; that’s your confirmation that you are onto something. This may guide you to trust countercurrents that may seem to violate prevailing (supposed) popular wisdom. These same aspects will help ease much of the anxiety you may be feeling, and provide you with a sense of confidence you don’t fully understand. That’s okay, and you don’t need to question it; just appreciate its presence. Whether these are actual angels, mentors or the ‘better angels of your nature’, the thing to do is listen to them, speak to them and thank them for their assistance. And don’t forget to ask when you need help.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — Mercury, perhaps the most influential planet for Virgo, stations retrograde later in the month. As it moves in reverse (from our point of view on Earth) it will gradually form a perfect trine to Chiron in your opposite sign Pisces. In this we see an aspect that points to the bridge between friends and lovers. This reminds me of one of my favorite true jokes — when someone says they don’t have sex with their friends, I ask if they prefer to have sex with their enemies. Yet the intimacy suggested in this aspect applies to other facets of relating, perhaps highlighting what distinguishes a friend: in my view, the commitment to healing. I know there are many other definitions going around, and I would propose that this is not a word to use casually, but rather, to use thoughtfully. Your circle of friends is your circle of light. The people you call your friends are the ones with whom you share mutual support, and willingness to heal and grow. They are the people willing and openly offering to support one another. It may take you some time to apply this definition to the people around you and see who stands up to the test, though events this month will make it clear who qualifies. What will be more abundantly clear is that you do have friends, and one friend in particular who transcends all of the usual boundaries and is your companion on every level.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Though this is not necessarily the easiest time for Libras, it’s certainly a meaningful one, and you’re likely to experience a series of breakthroughs on some of your longest-delayed projects or goals. As these happen, leave room to re-evaluate your goals. Question why you have a goal, not just what it is. When you get to the level of your motives, you could shift your point of view with one thought. What’s changed in recent years is that the appearance of doing something, or being known for it, has less importance than ever. That’s a big help, an authentic step on the way to sincerity. Go deeper into who you are and what your real purpose is. Many encounters you have with others are provoking you to do just this: to assert yourself, sometimes in the face of what blatantly contradicts your ideas. What you may discover as you do this is that everyone has something to teach you, or some gift for you, even if the transaction seemed confrontational. Keep your sense of humor, and you will spend your days collecting useful ideas like a bee collects pollen and in the process feeds the world. As you rise in your success — and make no mistake, your star is rising, despite any dubious quests and struggles you’ve been through, or what any other astrologer claims — have fun discovering how much you don’t know, and therefore, how much you have to learn. This is a core element of leadership.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Religion seems to have taken over both national and international politics, if one could go so far as to describe the crude ideological stampeding as religious. The resulting controversies are seemingly endless. Yet the need to express one’s faith is inherent in humanity, and it will always take some form, whether healthy or not. You may be feeling this calling now. From the look of your astrology, my observation is that it’s coming from a visceral level, not the level of ideas. You are beginning to feel your inherent truth, or to go deeper into a journey already begun, perhaps around 2001. Where this matter is concerned, the first question is who and what you serve. Bob Dylan was right: we all serve someone. It’s merely a question of whom, and for what motive. Your faith has the power to nourish others, something you’ve no doubt seen at work many times. Notice your ability to draw from a deep inner source, to allow yourself to be filled up, and then to offer what you have to the people around you. There is another way this could play out, though — by experiencing your generosity, you deduce that you have something to give, and in doing so, recognize that you’re in contact with the source of whatever that is. An image borrowed from Aquarius comes to mind — you’re now a kind of water bearer, though the urn is self-filling. Offer what you have to those who are thirsty. There are few better ways to learn compassion and humility.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — How you use your resources, or the ones to which you have access, says nearly everything about you. It’s the essence of how you relate to others, and what you might think of as your civic role. You instinctively know that humans only gain by putting together what they have, to benefit families, tribes, companies and nations. We need one another — and that is one of the most meaningful foundations of your understanding of life. Where the intent is to share and to be mutually supportive, it usually works well. I suspect that it pains you to see such waste, selfishness and the willingness of people to take advantage of what has been collectively accomplished. You may not be able to stop corporate crime, but you can be the person in your immediate environment who makes sure that resources are accounted for, kept safe and used wisely. Your chart looks like you’re about to be nominated quartermaster in chief for those you know; by one reading you could be coming into a windfall or an inheritance. By another reading you’re inheriting something from yourself, which may be measurable in money or observable as wisdom. In any event, you’re the steward of something that belongs not only to you but also to others around you. You’re being looked up to for your ethics and your ability to allocate this wealth wisely. You’ve been carefully ordering your priorities for years now. You know the right thing to do, and you have every reason to trust yourself.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — You’ve probably had enough of going it alone, or being willing to. Something seems to have stunned you to the awareness that it’s time to invite people into your life, and to be part of something larger. Yet the extended time you’ve spent in introspection has taught you a few things. You’ve learned so much about who you are, and moreover, you’ve learned how important it is to have that knowledge. Have you ever wondered how you lived without it? Really, you didn’t, but it was hiding on a deep level that would inform you in indirect ways. Now you’ve claimed what you know as direct self-knowledge, and this is offering you the confidence to meet the world on your own terms. There’s often a little gap that one has to cross over before doing that — perhaps something about the guilt of asserting yourself, perhaps about being seen as ‘selfish’, maybe the vulnerability associated with daring to encounter the world with what is true rather than a facade. I think you’ll find that your new approach is much easier, and more dependable. Who you are is something you don’t have to worry about, or think much about; who you are not is much more complicated, and consumes a lot of energy. Therefore, stick to who you are and what you want to share with others. Remember, this is more fun if you let go of jealousy, which means honoring the fun and pleasure others feel rather than trying to control it.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — If work has been less-than-perfect lately, I think you’ll be happy with what you create over the next few weeks, and how you approach the puzzle of your work environment. For you, what you do is just as important as where and how you do it. You could have the ideal job but if the working environment were not suitable for you, it would just not work. Now you can consider your plans with your environment as the first step in your thought process. Notice how where you work influences your ideas — the quality of light, the space around you and how your body feels. Regarding work, there’s one astrological detail that no Aquarius should be without. You need human contact and a real sense of whom you’re helping. Whatever field this may be in, the way you support others, and relate to others, needs to be more like how an ideal family would relate than what we find in the average workplace. You need real confirmation that your work is nourishing others who actually need you. This is an extension of the ‘humanitarian’ idea of Aquarius, though what I’m reading is Cancer on the 6th house — where Jupiter is about to take up residence. You have a lot to offer and the more you give, the more you’ll discover that you have. For your own peace of mind and encouragement, make sure that you’re offering your gifts where they are appreciated. You have options.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — I know it may sound silly to those who read old astrology books to suggest that Pisces people seek pleasure as their primary avocation; that’s what, in theory anyway, you do naturally. Yet that’s not my particular prejudice about Pisces; I tend to think of the last sign as signifying devotion to causes, to situations larger than yourself and to existence. When you offer your assistance, that’s not about feeling good for its own sake. Indeed, there are few signs that can persist through discomfort and delayed gratification like Pisces can. With your ‘ruling’ planet Jupiter changing signs this month to Cancer, your solar 5th house, you’re getting a clue that what gives you pleasure is the thing to focus on, at least for a full year till you get the habit down. This in turn will stoke your creativity, allowing you space to go in wholly new directions. If you want human companionship of the friendly erotic kind, that too is Jupiter in the 5th. In your chart that’s the story of something that feeds and strengthens most people — Pisces is the sign for whom sex is an inherently spiritual experience. Focus on the beautification of your home, starting from the kitchen out, and the food you prepare there. The way your chart is set up, everything you do along these lines will feed everything else, and you can get some energy cycling that feeds you and the people you love.