Dear Friend and Reader:

So, it’s been a year since we heard, and experienced, the fell news about the supposed election of an insane person to the United States presidency. And as that year has gone on, day by day, the news in the public sphere has been of disaster and disorder, injury and insult, seemingly with no bounds and to no end.

Illustrations by Jess Shepherd.

Particularly since the total solar eclipse, it’s been one national crisis after the next, whether born of intent, neglect, or some seemingly natural process. A series of major hurricanes, followed by a vast swath of northern California burning up, interlaced with threats of nuclear war, escalation of the war in Afghanistan, revelation of a war in Niger and of American military presence in a total of 172 countries, and most lately, a tax plan that would take more than a trillion dollars in new national debt and put it in the pockets of billionaires. God, that was a long sentence. That’s how it is.

We have cabinet officers whose job seems to be dismantling the agencies they run; we witnessed a very, very strange massacre in Las Vegas; we are seeing the belching forth of an entire universe of sexual abuse, including by the president himself; we have American citizens drinking from contaminated wells used to monitor Superfund sites in Puerto Rico, and on and on. Anyone who comes near TV or the internet is getting a steady stream of these things into their consciousness.

This is just what we know about. Here we are, “the greatest nation in the world.” What could possibly go wrong?

Life on Earth is challenging, stressful and at least a little dangerous, often under the very best conditions. Even where things are relatively calm, it often seems that death and danger are nearby; and if not, we still experience the pain of the rest of the world.

There are the significant challenges of everyday existence. Does anyone know anyone whose life is not touched by addiction or cancer or a serious car accident or an immune system disorder?

It Takes a Busload of Faith — and No Hope at All

As Lou Reed said, it takes a busload of faith to get by. I am concerned that many people are clinging to hope — for example, the hope that things will get better. I consider hope a paralytic agent, one that interferes both with faith and with taking informed action. In fact, there is no hope right now. The world is too far gone. If we can admit that much — that is, if we have the courage to admit it — maybe we can wake up, work together and start making some decisions.

Essential to this is admitting that many people are in a weakened state, whether from physical illness, burdens both practical and emotional, or a state of exhaustion. We will need to tap our deepest and most sincere spiritual resources and find seemingly new sources of strength. Each of us must do what we can, whenever we can; we must break free of false self-obsession and actively work to support our communities, and to share our resources and our knowledge.

We must support one another in being happy. I would encourage you to find time for the people you care about. Do your job with passion, not merely to get it done. When you can intervene and make the right thing happen, go out of your way to do so. We must get off this strictly-for-cash economy and support existence generously. If you have some extra money, make sure you divert some of it to who and what you know is the right thing, and remember: that’s not enough.

As the technological environment completes its takeover of the human nervous system and sensory experiences, we are as a species becoming rigid and robotic, and losing our sense of play. If we are going to get out of the problems we are in, we will need to learn how to play with one another; which means to trust one another, feel one another and anticipate one another’s needs.

We will need to learn how to have fun making the world a better place. We don’t need entertainment. We need the pleasure of collaboration and of doing the right thing. I will say this again and again: we must learn to trust one another, and to give one another the solid ground on which that trust can be built.

A Rapidly Changing Environment

We’re now experiencing a series of sign changes by slow-moving planets. This does not happen often; the last time was in the years leading up to 2012. When this happens, the color, tone and energetic quality of life can shift rapidly. Most of these changes occur in the background. As profound as they are, they are easy to miss, and to miss them means to miss the opportunities they present.

This began in mid-October with Jupiter’s ingress into Scorpio. In terms of understanding life on Earth, Scorpio is one of the most valuable signs to understand.

Since Saturn left Scorpio in late 2014 (dipping back in for part of 2015), there hasn’t been much going on in that sign. True, there have been a wide diversity of esoteric planets and asteroids. While useful, they are not exactly easy for most people to dial in.

Saturn in Scorpio (late 2012 through 2014, and part of 2015) was not exactly wet. It added heaviness to a sign that, due to the times we’re living in, comes with a needless sense of weight. Most of that weight is the result of our collective and individual reticence or outright refusal to consider the subject matter described by Scorpio, most of which relates to sex, death and change. (If you’re a Scorpio and you feel like you spook people, this is why.)

While Pisces has been described as the “dustbin of the zodiac,” actually in our age Scorpio gets this distinction. It’s where we throw everything we’re afraid of, or are embarrassed about.

Before Jupiter’s arrival, the most recent Big Thing to happen in Scorpio was the 2016 Mars retrograde there. That came along with the pussy-grabbing recording, the rise of Donald Trump to the presidency, and the majority of white women voting for him nonetheless. I would have thought the pussy-grabbing would have been a deal-breaker, though for a lot of women, the candidate with the pussy was the deal-breaker. I am still trying to wrap my head around that. With Mars retrograde, we got a look at the dark and dreary side of Scorpio.

Jupiter in Scorpio, Through November 2018

So now we have Jupiter, the “greater benefic,” otherwise known as Jove of “by Jove” fame, which translates to jovial. Jupiter in Scorpio will have two basic effects and a wide flurry of side effects. One will be to magnify the crisis. We’re seeing this in the countless reports of sexual misconduct that have been coming into the open in late October, flushed to the surface by Jupiter. That has yet to end. What seems to shock everyone is the nearly ubiquitous extent of sexual assault. Everyone has either experienced it personally or is close to someone who has.

This is calling for healing. We now have a concept of what sexual healing is imminently necessary, now. We face a challenge in that even most therapists are too embarrassed by sex to go into any detail about the subject matter. Most therapists also lack the proper training to do so. Somewhere, somehow, we must open up to this form of learning, which will mean releasing all moral judgments about sex. Sex is not a moral issue. It’s a basic feature of life, like air and water.

Thankfully, the other effect of Jupiter in Scorpio is likely to be a lightening up of the whole sex “issue,” and the ability to regain some sense of play. Right now, the current definition of sex seems to be “that which has a victim” rather than “that which we do for creativity and fun.” While we are getting the victimhood out of our systems, let’s do some trick-or-treating, which as everyone knows is a fun custom associated with a holiday commemorating dead ancestors.

Jupiter in Scorpio is also a reminder that wholesome, responsible sex requires knowledge and even some wisdom (a Jupiter thing). Kids should not have two children by age 16. One kind of knowledge is comprehensive sex education, which has largely been supplanted by the nightmare of “abstinence only” indoctrination. We need actual facts about, and familiarity with, our bodies, and the emotions they take us through. We need to account for what sex does to relationships.

The other kind of sexual knowledge falls under the general category of what you might call Tantra — the previously occult wisdom associated with the philosophy of sex-as-existence. There is no limit to the depth of knowledge attainable using sex as a metaphor for existence, and as a mode of healing and of creative expression.

Yet for as long as we’re attached to the power trip of sex, we will never get there. Sex must be seen as a vehicle to facilitate the healing process, rather than as a means of getting power over someone, messing with them, monetizing the relationship, an opportunity for blackmail, etc. Power exists at the far end of the sexual spectrum. Once you leave that side of things, you move increasingly toward love, pleasure and creativity. Remind yourself of this anytime you get caught in any form of a sexual power trip.

Saturn Across the Galactic Core, and Into Capricorn

We have time in this month’s column for one more transit (of several big ones taking hold in 2018), and that would be Saturn in Capricorn. Saturn arrives in the first of its two home signs (the other being Aquarius) on Dec. 20, 2017. This transit will first provide a sense of what’s missing — and then ripple into an even bigger sense of what must be done about it.

Before Saturn arrives in Capricorn, it makes a conjunction to the Galactic Core, which is in very late Sagittarius. Let’s focus on this, and leave the family, corporate and government Capricorn stuff for the December rodeo.

Speaking in my role as the rock and roll shaman of astrology, I consider Saturn moving across the Galactic Core a major initiation for the human race. Of all the planets to master while living here on Earth, Saturn is the most important, because it addresses structure and time. It’s possible to think you can live without those things, though even if you’re a yogi who hangs out in a cave for 20 years, that’s still about structure (the cave) and time (20 years).

The Galactic Core is like an enormous beacon summoning consciousness to the core of our spiral island in space. Most of us are only dimly aware we live on an island of 300 billion stars, give or take a few. We live on the outskirts, between two spiral arms, which is a metaphor for why our world seems so God-forsaken.

Over the next six weeks or so, Saturn, that central computer associated with structure and time, will encounter the Galactic Core, which contains a giant black hole. That’s a meeting of the physical with the anti-physical; of time with the timeless; of a very strange form of energy with all known forms of matter.

Let this event bend your consciousness in the direction of actual spiritual awareness. Let it take you out of the structures that contain your mind, and show you something larger. This is not merely conceptual; or rather, it’s no more or less conceptual than you, personally, are. Let yourself be guided to the future, because there is one, and you are it.

With love,

About the Artist: Jess Shepherd

J. R. Shepherd.

Jess Shepherd (BSc MSc DipSBA FLS) is a full-time, practising botanical artist, curator and publisher who is about to embark on her biggest project yet – The Blue Flower – where she will be travelling across the globe in her search for the most beautiful blue flowers. It will be a journey not only of scientific value but also artistic discovery. Trained originally as a botanist, Jess tries to inspire us to think beyond our experience whilst pushing the capacity for botanical art to bring greater awareness of plants and the environment. The leaves featured here are part of her Leafscape collection where she set out to challenge our sense of scale, its value and how we measure it.

Introducing the 20th Annual Edition of Planet Waves
Growth Is Inevitable. Becoming Is an Art Form.

Dear Friend of Planet Waves:

Here’s the thing: Life goes on. No matter how crazy the world is, we who are alive must keep on living. And that means we must keep growing and becoming.

The more chaotic the world becomes, the more we need a tool that can help us spot the patterns in the chaos — and that would be astrology. I have long considered astrology just one resource among many potentially useful ones, though with each passing day, the gift of pattern recognition, and how these patterns relate to our lives, is a service that astrology is uniquely suited to provide.

Me, at my music desk in The Place of the Way, my new studio.

I have begun preparing THE ART OF BECOMING, the 20th annual edition of Planet Waves. This letter will tell you more about the project, which, if all goes reasonably well, will be delivered during the month of January.

Brief note on pricing policy: we offer the best price for those who purchase sooner.The current price is $88; we will be increasing that to $99 Friday night.

My annual readings provide not only insight but spiritual and psychological leverage. I am not here to predict the future, but rather to help you design your future. The project began as an extended January monthly horoscope; it’s now more like an astrological novel, written with the pacing and detail of well-crafted fiction writing.

My focus is on love and work: your relationship to yourself, followed by your relationship to others; your professional activities, financial matters and tapping your creativity.

In the end, I consider myself a motivational presenter. I see my job as helping you get excited about your own potential, and describing the specific ways you can manifest your desires into reality.

In the next section, I will describe some of the transits I’ll be writing about in THE ART OF BECOMING. I present these events in human language, using technical terms only as necessary — and explaining everything as I go. As a journalist, I write to be understood.

This is astrology written for humans, in human language, using concrete examples and images.

The Outer Planet Transits of 2018

Even by contemporary standards, 2018 is a distinctive year astrologically. We are still feeling the effects of the Uranus-Eris conjunction (the impact of the digital revolution on consciousness). But many, many more things are happening. They include slow-moving planets ingressing new signs. When several outer planets make moves at the same time, you know that everything will be in motion and a new world will arise.

These transits include:

Jupiter in Scorpio. That began earlier this month, and this one-year transit, ending in November 2018, in many ways sets the tone for the year: tapping the spiritual wisdom associated with matters of transformation, sexual awareness and experience, and the ability to have a deep conversation when it counts the most.

Starting chart file and notes for THE ART OF BECOMING.

Saturn enters Capricorn. Saturn will join Pluto in Capricorn, its first sign change since late 2014. This will place Saturn square the Aries Point, the intersection of the individual and the collective.

Family material, our relationship to the government and the corporate spheres, and those entities themselves will come into focus. This is the beginning of the Saturn-Pluto conjunction of 2020.

Chiron Enters Aries. In 2018, Chiron will change signs for the first time since 2010, when it entered Pisces. Chiron in Aries will focus the question of identity, in an age when many people are confused about who they are and why they are on Earth. Chiron has been my astrological specialty since beginning this work in 1994. I will give this beautiful transit the attention that it deserves.

Uranus Enters Taurus. For the past seven years, Uranus has been in Aries, making two significant alignments: the seven-part Uranus-Pluto square (the Occupy! movement, Arab Spring and the Wisconsin labor rebellion), and the Uranus-Eris conjunction (the impact of digital conditions on individuals and society). Now Uranus will move into Taurus, which you might describe as The Body Electric. This will focus attention on physical reality, recognizing the technological impact of Uranus.

Minor Planet Transits. Pholus (small cause, big effect; multigenerational addiction issues) and Quaoar (creation myth and family patterns) are among the important minor-planet sign changes of 2018. I will take these into account, along with many other minor planet movements.

Product and Pricing Details

Each reading is chapter-length (about 5,000 words or longer) and takes about 12 hours to chart, compose and write. They are presented in web format, and two formats of printable PDF — US Letter and A4 (European letter). I am planning to deliver the readings during the month of January — the earlier the better!

The 20th annual edition of Planet Waves corresponds to the Time-Space tarot card. This card is from the Voyager Tarot by Dr. James Wanless. Other decks call the card “Judgement.”

This reading is written for your Sun, Moon and rising signs. It’s also designed to be read for significant others, business partners and children. We have a “one purchase per household” policy. If you’re going to share with your kids and their housemates, please send a gift.

The current price is $88 for all 12 signs. We will increase this to $99 tomorrow evening, and hold it there for a while before increasing to our final pre-order price of $111.

Individual sign sales will start at about $29 per sign. Most people who purchase individual signs end up buying more. It pays to get it with all 12 signs at the current low price point. Remember, that will last just 24 hours!

A Writing Adventure

Writing the annual is always an adventure. I bring all of my talent and experience to this work: my spiritual training, my astrological training, my therapy training and much else. Then — I sit at my desk and weave the story of our lives.

Writing astrology is a special task, because of the profound power of suggestion that this kind of work has. Doing the writing, I immerse myself entirely in the archetypes of the signs and the planets. I use my Pisces shape-shifting power and I become the zodiac, and its inhabitants, and tell the story of our lives from the inside out.

The result will be something beautiful: a detailed guide to THE ART OF BECOMING.

It’s good to be with you.

Lovingly,

PS — If you want to order by phone, call (845) 481-5616. If you don’t get through, please leave a message, and we will get back to you within one business day.

Of Rabbit Holes and Deep Dives

By Amanda Painter

What’s the difference between merely falling down a proverbial rabbit hole and following your instincts to uncover a mystery, or to get beneath the surface of something in a way that changes you? The activities can look the same at the outset. Is the defining factor one of practicality — that is, what you do with what you discover, or how it changes you?

Installation in the 2011 Sacred & Profane Festival, Peaks Island, Maine. Photo by Amanda Painter.

Over the next couple of days, the prominent astrology seems to relate to these ideas, thanks to some very strong connections to the sign Scorpio.

First up is today’s conjunction between the Sun and Jupiter in very early Scorpio (exact at 2:09 pm EDT / 18:09 UTC). Jupiter magnifies what it touches, and the Sun represents your conscious awareness. So if you happen to be in a bad mood, feel wronged by someone or tend toward the darker side of life, this could be a reminder to watch out for overdoing the sharper side of Scorpio’s emotional palette.

Yet solar Scorpio is also the time of year when the veil between our world and the unseen realms is said to get thin and permeable; and Jupiter also represents things such as learning about topics remote to your usual experience, philosophical understanding and the ‘superconscious’. You might take a moment to notice what you’re being invited to dive into and explore, or to feel and sense more deeply.

With Scorpio relating to such things as sex, death, secrets and transformation — and the Sun relating to outward expression — are you feeling inclined to share a sexual secret? Or maybe a sense of sexual or emotional confidence and curiosity is running in the background of your psyche. If you’ve ever had an interest in facilitating sexual education (something sorely needed in the U.S.), for yourself or for others, the current astrology would seem to support that.

Sex is under assault in our culture, and has been for centuries. The toxic results of its corruption at the hands of patriarchal religion — from being a natural biological, emotional and spiritual phenomenon to being a source of shame, guilt, pain and abuse — cannot be overstated. We see it in everything from the backlash to high-profile sexual predators, to assumptions about how ‘good girls’ are supposed to behave and that ‘boys will be boys’. A planet making contact with the Sun-Jupiter conjunction adds another layer to this week’s themes.

Continue reading →

Where Pop Culture Trends Go to Die

By Amanda Painter

With Halloween/Samhain and the Days of the Dead arriving next week, we head into the heart of Scorpio season. And today’s Sun-Jupiter conjunction in that sign signals an expansion or magnification of all things Scorpio.

Just in case you’re experiencing the more, uh, intense side of that in an uncomfortable way, here’s some humor to remind you that even the darkest, deepest shadows have their lighter side. Michael Fry, an art teacher and parent from Mamaroneck, New York, was inspired by Disney World’s Haunted Mansion gravestones to create his own graveyard on his front yard.

But as Jennifer Machin writes on Mashable, “these have a twist — Fry’s graveyard is made up of pop culture trends that are dead or dying out in 2017.”

As Fry says himself, the graveyard also includes a few trends he’s seeing in his classroom that he dearly hopes will die this year (homemade slime, and “dabbing” — an alleged dance move that’s arisen from coughing into one’s elbow while smoking pot and dancing). Along with the frivolous, serious trends that seem to be dying — “normal seasons” stands out — are also represented.

I’m not sure what it might look like if a zombie apocalypse triggers a horde of undead “plump lips” to rise from the grave and haunt us, but hopefully that trend will die a peaceful death and rest for all eternity, so we never have to find out.

Monthly Horoscopes and Publishing Schedule Notes

Your extended monthly horoscopes for November are published below in this issue. We published your extended monthly horoscopes for October on Thursday, Sept. 21. Please note: we normally publish the extended monthly horoscope on the first Friday after the Sun has entered a new sign.

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Take the time, and the emotional risk, of encountering people as people; not their online avatar, their image in pixels or their disembodied voice. Make real contact, in person, without a time limit. That part is easy: when you plan to visit someone, don’t schedule anything else afterwards for the same day; and if you might stay over, clear your morning hours. The idea is to give yourself room to stretch out and experience something you’re not necessarily planning for. You might know what you want. You might also recognize that it’s a little weird to declare (for example) that you will never, ever do something with someone. If you’re saying that, then you’re carrying around some energy. What’s that about? It rarely happens that you’re knocked off of your center specifically due to the actions of someone else. When you are holding your center, and you know who you are and what you want, you tend to be in balance and on solid ground. There’s something more significant: know what you have to offer. You will feel relevant in your relationships based on what you give; not what you take, or ask for, or expect. You’re the one in a position to start the process of exchange, by being generous with your mind, your body and your spirit; with your time, your love, and your resources. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — You possess the gift of healing; in particular, helping others unravel their emotional and physical knots. It’s true that everyone has this gift, at least in potential, though at the moment, you have especially strong access. It’s been gradually developing over the past years. Learning to use this can benefit the people around you, though it will help to recognize how minimal your role really is. First, remember that when you’re assisting someone in any way, it’s not about you. You might indirectly benefit, though the focus must stay on the person you’re assisting. It’s also far preferable to help only when asked, or when you reach an impasse and have someone’s consent. At that point, you might gently guide people to the edge of their seeming limits, then let them make the choice to enter new territory or not. You cannot push or pull anyone beyond their boundaries. But you can continue to relate to them, and stay open, when they are at that point of hesitation; making sure you’re open and willing to accept whatever choice they might make. One useful tool is a sense of play. Keep things light, and engage them gently. Many people are caught in paradoxes that they don’t understand, but which you might. Meanwhile, consider how all of these ideas relate to you personally. Where is your edge, and why? For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — The problem with life inside the robot — by which I mean wall-to-wall internet, and every automated device connected to it — is that we humans are losing our sense of play. That’s such an interesting word, because it works to describe what one does in a game; and also wiggle room; and a drama for fun, like a skit. In the digital mind, one error in one line of code can shut down the whole program. In the creative and physical realm, you can skip over mistakes, you can improvise, and you can go off-script. You can be curious; a computer cannot. All the algorithms in the world do not equal the hunger for knowledge or experience. You, however, are all about curiosity and passion for experience. You are a Gemini, after all; a sign represented by two little kids who, you can be sure, would prefer to play nearly all of the time. Therefore, look for every opportunity. When someone says something funny, toss them back one of your witty lines. When someone smiles at you, actually smile back and return the positive vibes. Get your hands into clay, paint, dirt, dough or a piano keyboard. Most significantly, bring a sense of play into this thing we call work. Right now, the world is smothering in boredom, which is a form of suppressed anger. Bring your loving heart and quick mind everywhere you go. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Here’s the deal: the charts for Cancer have not been this good in a long time. This is less about what’s going on in your sign and more about what’s happening in your empathetic water signs Scorpio and Pisces. (The astrology is pretty good for them too, though you get triple word score.) Mercury, the Sun and Jupiter are currently in Scorpio, which is your 5th solar house (pleasure, play, games, romance and sex for fun). Venus is on the way, arriving on Nov. 7. This is enough to bring out the artist, the lover and the adventurer in anyone. It will only take a little discipline to prod yourself into having fun all the time, wherever you are, and whomever you’re with.  However, given the prevailing state of the world (currently being redesigned as a nonstop panic attack) and the freaky social environment that’s obsessed with treating sex like a crime or a disease (things were not always this way, though it happens from time to time), you will need that bit of discipline. You will need to take the initiative and spark up the conversation, strike up the band, or invite people over to your crib. Don’t be deterred if anyone seems uninterested. Don’t take it personally. You are being groomed for leadership, and this is a rather pleasant aspect of your training program. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — You simply must be more confident. This is a choice. It’s not something bestowed on you by a fairy godmother or earned like the Eagle Scout badge. You just wake up one day and decide you’re going to take some bigger chances with your life. You decide it’s time to push your seeming limits. You arrive at the point where you must be your own authority, and consciously boot the vestiges of your parents and various other control freaks out of the way. You seem to have been hesitating for a while; you may have run into the same limits repeatedly. One factor to unravel is any fear you might have of going out of control. One mental meme that’s been circulating goes something like this: If I let go a little, I won’t be able to reel myself back in. Or, if I have some fun, I won’t want to work. Or, if I smile at that person, I’ll get stuck in a 20-year relationship. These thoughts, which come in a thousand other forms, do nothing but undermine confidence, and creativity. They interfere with your ability to live your life rather than have your life live you. In these very weeks, ultra-serious Saturn is ending a long, three-year run through Sagittarius, which is your 5th solar house of pleasure, play and passion. It’s time to move on. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — You have something to say. It’s now time to say it. Why you might not have done so in the past is not so mysterious: many of the things you want to share are taboo. Even to say the first word about the topics most important to you is to risk a controversy. That, however, is impressive in itself, and it’s a clue about the power of your particular message. I suggest you practice getting the conversation going; and more to the point, get your ideas into writing, and then put them where others can read them. If you do this, you will begin rapidly to cultivate your knowledge, and your ability to express yourself. You are, for a number of reasons, immune from the effects of any debate you might stir up; particularly if you express yourself from a loving place, with the desire to both learn and inform. This will stretch you in many ways: it’s time to leave behind any embarrassment about the actual ideas you are interested in. It’s time to have sensitive conversations in person rather than exclusively on the internet. You are in a position to be a leader in your community, by which I mean one who sets the example as a sincere seeker and helps open the way for others to seek sincerely. This process has just begun. Upcoming developments will deepen and accelerate your journey. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Through these last two months of the year, you’re about to experience an unusual transformation that will reveal the one thing all conscious people are wondering: your purpose on Earth. That might sound like a tall promise for a horoscope column, though the astrology is indeed unusual. What comes to you probably won’t be in the form of a tweet (for example, “It’s u’r destiny 2b gr8 cellist”). Rather, your guidance will more likely arrive in the form of doing something that you know is right. It might not be the thing you do all day, every day, though you’ll likely be actively engaged with it in some way now, and you’ll notice that it’s just the thing to do. Also, you’ll probably have had this same revelation before, though somehow you forgot, or got distracted, like having the idea for a novel that you were about to write down, but didn’t. This time, however, take the message, and act on your knowledge with your body as well as your mind. Yes, the truth is subtle. It’s a softly spoken calling, not a clap of thunder. Developing your path or project may take time, though you’d be wise to take steps in your new direction without delay, and keep taking small actions that gradually help you build momentum. There’s plenty more to this idea than you currently recognize. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Scorpio Birthdays 2017-18
What Will You Do with Your Astonishing Potential This Year?

Dear Scorpio Friend and Reader:

With today’s Sun-Jupiter conjunction in your sign, your solar year is beginning with astonishing potential. That might feel ironic, given the state of the world around you: there’s a lot of pain, destruction and chaos out there. But who better than a Scorpio to transmute that energy with pure passion, to get the emotional waters flowing again — both within yourself and, as it ripples out, in those closest to you?

Depending on how your year is going, that might feel exciting or it might feel daunting. Either way, you can have a trusted guide by your side in the form of Eric Francis and your 2017-18 Scorpio Birthday Reading.

Eric will be covering the truly fortunate transit of Jupiter through your sign for the next year (you’ll want to tap into that big ball of goodness as consciously as possible while it’s there!) — as well as several other major-planet sign changes in the coming months. With Saturn, Uranus and Chiron on the move, your environment will be shifting.

In particular, Uranus entering your opposite sign and ‘relationship house’ — Taurus — could bring some surprises over the next few years. As a fixed sign, you may do better at handling the unexpected (and your partners) with a little heads up. It gives you time to get oriented on the inherent creative potential, and to channel your energy and emotion in deeply productive ways.

Your reading will include two astrology segments of at least 30 minutes each, plus a tarot reading using the Voyager Tarot by James Wanless (you also get an extended description of your sign). Recorded in pro-quality audio, you can listen as many times as you like.

And, you’ll want to: Eric designs these readings to combine the best of his motivational life-coaching skills; the best of his therapy training; and the most down-to-Earth, practical, jargon-free astrological insights you’ll find anywhere on the internet.

If you’d like to secure your full reading at the lowest possible price of $33, you’ll want to pre-order the 2017-18 Scorpio Birthday Reading here. And you’ll want to do it soon: the price will increase as publication nears, and then will increase again upon publication of the full reading.

How will you use the blessings of Jupiter in your sign this year, Scorpio?

Yours & truly,

Amanda Painter

P.S. If you know and love anyone with a Scorpio Sun, Moon or rising sign, the 2017-18 Scorpio Birthday Reading makes an incredible gift.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Jupiter has arrived in your sign for one year. If there’s such a thing as an astrological need, this fulfills one: for Scorpio to have an infusion of water (provided by the Jupiter connection to Pisces) and of spiritual leavening (provided by its connection to Sagittarius). The last time a major planet visited your sign was the Mars retrograde of 2016, which was not exactly wet and juicy; Saturn, for part of 2015, was not exactly a ripe mango, either. Now you have extra resources to work with, and room to maneuver. You’re likely to be feeling more optimistic; not just about life but about who you are. That’s most of what you need to go on in life. When you feel good about yourself, you can accomplish just about anything. At the end of the year, another planetary move will have a similar effect: Saturn enters Capricorn, which will take the brakes off of your self-esteem. Between now and then, however, you must fully claim your self-respect; something you’ve been struggling to do in recent years (with some success). You will know you’re doing this because you feel demonstrably better about yourself. You will be less defensive, and more supportive of the people around you. You’ll be more interested in whether you’ve kept your promises to others than whether they’ve kept their promises to you. That’s true self-confidence. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — Let’s continue to focus on the movement of Saturn through the last degrees of your sign, which might only occur twice or maybe three times in your lifetime. Saturn is the lord of the material plane; that is, of physical reality and its structures as we know them; and that has a lot to do with time. Saturn is now conjunct the Galactic Core: a spiritual source, and a homing signal. The combination of Saturn with its orientation on matter, and the Core, with its spiritual focus, represents the quest of all true seekers: how does one live in accord with divine intelligence on this level of reality, with all its madness? Now you have the story of your life short enough to fit into a fortune cookie. You are going through an integration process that will build in intensity through the winter solstice. This will put you in a position where you feel compelled to make decisions that guide your life based on your actual values. At this new stage of your life, if you know something is true, you must act on it. If you understand that some things serve your purposes and the greater good, you must choose them, rather than what harms. Combining the Galactic Core and Saturn, the one thing for which there’s no room at all is self-deception. Write that on your birthday cake. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Do you really think you can put your faith in technology? Your solar chart suggests you might be doing this. If so, give it up. It’s the current mental plague that will strangle everyone and everything in its path, and is already doing a good job of it. Rather, you would do much better to invest your faith in the human realm, such as the living example you set every day. You’re currently in one of those phases where your leadership skills are in demand and in focus. Most of what you’re leading with is your own desire. You are demonstrating that what you want must be the guiding principle of your life. That sounds selfish, I know; though there’s one way to test the validity of these desires: they work for everyone else, too. This isn’t the trickle-down theory of economics. To the contrary, there’s a direct, mutual and immediate benefit between what serves you and what serves your family, company, community or the public. That’s the standard to orient on. At this stage of your life, nothing can be good for you and simultaneously bad for anyone else. The world has a lot to learn about this kind of plus-plus symbiosis (a fancy term for win-win). Set aside any feelings of competition you may be having. And remember, computers won’t solve any problems. Only you can, especially if you collaborate. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — With Jupiter, the Sun and Mercury traveling through Scorpio, the potent midheaven angle of your solar chart, you’re experiencing a calling to success and achievement. On some level, that equates to the ability to do good or ill. We live in an age when accountability is typically either a thing of the past or something enforced on people. You need to subject yourself voluntarily to an evaluation process. Make sure that older, wiser mentors who are not afraid to disagree with you are involved in your decision-making process. Because you have influence, and because your aims are likely to develop into something bigger than you’ve planned, you must at all times keep one eye on the law of unintended consequences. It’s often said that knowledge is power, and the one thing that Aquarius of all the signs must be aware of is what you do not know. Understanding that your decisions have impact and that you don’t know everything will help keep you in check effectively enough to make better decisions. Be cautious of the desire to accomplish everything at once, something that could vex you over the coming year. Rather, work from a list of priorities, which you keep flexible with ongoing re-evaluation. This will help prevent you from getting stuck on anything, and ensure that you stay fairly close to being in the moment — and facing toward the future. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — To the extent that you’ve gained standing in society, you’ve earned it through effort, trial and tribulation. For three years, Saturn has been making its way across the top of your solar chart, an irresistible calling to attempt the impossible. Alternately, you may have been put into positions where you had to rise to the occasion whether you wanted to or not. Now is your moment to claim your place in the world, which means the right to do what you do best. You’ll be doing this in a time when many people are struggling and uncertain, and you will need to navigate this carefully. You might think of your function as expressing the particular gift, talent or desire that you have. You can take that a few levels deeper and remember that your actual purpose is to connect with people, and encourage them to participate: that’s to say, to demonstrate whatever you do by doing it lovingly. At the moment, you have access to some astonishing resources, all of which are yours to share. Nothing is actually yours, per se, or not yours, per se. Your role is to ensure that the people you care about have enough of everything, so much as you can make that possible. You are a Pisces, the Omega point of the zodiac. Now is the time to answer your calling and step into your true purpose. For your Eric Francis horoscope this week, please see this link.