Uranus-Eris: Of God, Country and Internet

Posted by Eric F Coppolino

june9-20-2016.jpg

Today is the big day. This morning Uranus aligned in a conjunction with Eris for the first time since 1928. Because Uranus goes retrograde and then direct, there will be three conjunctions in close proximity, just like with any Uranus event. The next two are Sept. 25, 2016 and March 17, 2017.

“When this kind of fire starts, it is very hard to put out. The tender boughs of innocence burn first, and the wind rises, and then all goodness is in jeopardy.”
— The Log Lady speaking to Laura in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me

Dear Friend and Reader:

Today is the big day. This morning Uranus aligned in a conjunction with Eris for the first time since 1928. Because Uranus goes retrograde and then direct, there will be three conjunctions in close proximity, just like with any Uranus event. The next two are Sept. 25, 2016 and March 17, 2017.

Photo by Eric Francis.

The conjunctions, as you may know, are in Aries. What’s so unusual is that the last time Uranus and Eris got together, in 1927 and 1928, they were also in Aries. This is because Eris is spending 121 years in Aries, more than enough time for Uranus, with its relatively short 84-year orbit, to catch up with it a second time. [View ephemeris here.]

It can be difficult to discern the nature of outer-planet events, especially while they are happening. Yet sometimes it’s possible to suss out. You might recall that a few weeks ago, I looked at how the Uranus-Pluto conjunction of the 1960s was perceived at the time.

Because outer planets have this strange, often invisible effect, one must look closely and go beyond the ordinary. That is what outer planets signify: what is outside the realm of normal waking consciousness; what is often invisible to the senses.

Assuming one is not too distracted by ice cream, it’s possible to get some clues, using major cultural events around the time of an astrological development.

The week this happened, Hillary Clinton became the first woman in American history to be the presumptive presidential candidate for a major political party. This fits the pattern of Eris events, which seem to come with advances in women’s rights (particularly Chiron-Eris conjunctions).

A week earlier, Donald Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee, somewhat unprecedented in that someone outside the political establishment used a form of media manipulation (rather than political contacts or money) to get as far as he did. In last week’s article I described how the presidential candidates, including Bernie Sanders, were tapping into some underlying background energy to establish themselves. The political candidates are figures dancing around in front of a background environment that is invisible until you know what to look for.

Planet Waves
Under the influence of Uranus-Eris, Hillary Clinton became the first female presumptive nominee for president by a major political party in the history of the United States. Photo by Reuters.

Presently the main element of the background is the Internet. If you want a glimpse of the environment, consider this. Eric McLuhan, the son and dharma heir of Marshall McLuhan, recently wrote:

“The body is everywhere assaulted by all of our new media, a state which has resulted in deep disorientation of intellect and destabilization of culture throughout the world. In the age of disembodied communication, the meaning and significance and experience of the body is utterly transformed and distorted.”

Experiencing the Internet used to be a trip onto the astral plane. You used to dive in and explore, and feel the strange weightlessness of your cyber being, and a strange sensation of being shorn of your identity.

Today, however, we are subsumed by the Internet. It’s part of the ubiquitous background environment. Wherever you go, you’re in some online environment or another: Netflix in the nail salon; digital purchasing every time you swipe a credit or debit card; your travel patterns tracked by E-ZPass and GPS (and so on). Most people carry around a device that accesses the Internet many different ways, which they are doing all day long, in that form and many others.

Meanwhile the conducting media of the digital sphere — microwaves — are soaking our nervous systems to increasing degrees every minute of the day and night, altering consciousness and sleep patterns.

You cannot enter the Internet with your body, and now the Internet is everywhere. Instead of visiting the astral plane, life is now an out-of-body experience. And as Eric McLuhan writes, the body — and identity — are utterly transformed and distorted. For those curious, I describe this process in greater detail in the most recent Planet Waves FM and the corresponding Planet Waves TV.

Planet Waves
…and Donald Trump became the first, er, real estate developer, president of a fake university and steak distributor to become the presumptive Republican nominee. Photo via Business Insider.

I recognize that describing the Internet this way on the Internet is a little like standing up in church and shouting, “Mary wasn’t really a virgin! And Jesus didn’t walk on water!”

So be it. Here is an illustration. It’s well known among those who communicate with the other side that many dead people don’t know they’re dead.

They live what you might call an unconscious astral life, one that can involve repetitive cycles such as getting up and getting dressed every day, day after day (and that’s all that happens) — somewhat like being in-body but not. [One such experience is documented here.] In a similar way, the living don’t know they’re actually alive, and it’s getting more difficult to figure out.

Now imagine that a nuclear bomb went off over society and all at once everyone was suddenly shorn of their body, and transformed into an astral being — but with nobody knowing what happened. Life is a hazy trance wherein there is no past and no future and only a weird replica of the present. People seem to have human form, but they live in a constant state of dyslexia and vertigo. The prospect of physical experiences or indeed any unexpected development is ‘scary’.

The rules and logic of existence are as strange as in a dream. There might be some internal logic; but when you think about it, exceedingly little makes sense. That’s rather like what happened as the Internet took over. In politics, this has gone from the idea that politicians are liars to the somewhat broader notion that there is no such thing as truth. And this, in turn, easily leads to how it doesn’t matter anyway.

Planet Waves
John McCain as a POW. He refused release, offered because his father was a commander of the Vietnam War. He has endorsed Trump for president, despite Trump’s claiming he’s not a war hero.

Last week I was writing about how the presidential candidates are drawing on some kind of background energies (mental, emotional and environmental conditions) to get the results that they are getting.

I left out two quotes by Donald Trump, saving the best for last.

In a famous episode recently, Trump said he thought that Sen. John McCain, a Republican that even many Democrats used to respect, was not really a war hero.

Whatever you want to call him, McCain was indeed taken prisoner of war, held in the notorious Hanoi Hilton, kept in solitary confinement and tortured over the course of five years. He refused release when his captors offered; they’d learned that his father was the commanding officer of the Vietnam theater of war, and saw a propaganda opportunity. Instead, he opted to stick with his fellow American prisoners who’d been captured before him, following the military code of conduct.

“He’s not a war hero,” Trump said in an interview with the master dreamweaver himself, Frank Luntz. “He’s a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren’t captured.”

First there is the circuitous ‘logic’ of the sentence. If you woke up from a dream and someone had said that to you, you would be wondering what the heck they meant. If you remember that all facets of your dream are elements of your own consciousness, you might wonder what was going on. The statement, “I like people that weren’t captured” is about as pleasant as swallowing a mouthful of splinters, especially coming from someone who never served in the military much less in combat. But somehow it doesn’t matter.

Now, remember that Trump is the Republican nominee for president — representing the very party that has vocally extolled the virtues of war and war heroes; the party of the last American five-star general, Dwight David Eisenhower.

Planet Waves
Operation Desert Storm, 1991, the beginning of a 25+ year war. Commanders and staff of the 1st Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment after a nighttime Apache helicopter raid. The United States has been in Iraq ever since. Photo provided by Maj. Gen. Richard A. Cody.

Remember that the Republicans started the bombing of Iraq in 1991, which has yet to stop 25 years later; it has expanded significantly.

By some miracle Trump not only gets away with this statement (as with many others that would have been unconscionable in the past); he vanquished his adversaries and won enough delegates to get the nomination.

To me this says more about his supporters than it does about him. Values and attitudes have changed. Trump also got away with lying about giving $6 million to veterans groups; the funds did not move until media reports called him to task. This coincides perfectly with every other aspect of the treatment of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. It’s as if the United States took its own service men and women prisoner of war, denying them health care, jobs and homes.

The ground that used to be an important element of American values, respect for veterans, has crumbled. This coincides with what seems to be an inability to get people excited about war, pro or con. It took the Sept. 11 incident — the bombing of Manhattan, and being totally shocked — to get people sufficiently excited about Bush War II that they acquiesced to it.

This is not vaguely about Trump; this is about all of us. He is merely acting as a spokesman, someone with the guts or the ambition to say how he knows many people already feel. In this respect, he’s a great contemporary artist, or an activist — he’s thrown his astral body into the machine.

There is another possibility here, which is that people are seeing through how ridiculous the whole concept of a war hero is. I would still contend that if there’s such a thing, McCain would surely qualify.

Let’s now consider the other great cornerstone of Republicanism, God. Particularly since the 1980s, fundamentalist churches were the hot and happening Republican clubhouses. Jesus and the Republican Party seemed to have a full merger. Abstinence brainwashing became a mandatory program in schools; military prayer breakfasts could be upset by “radical secularists.”

Planet Waves
Trump has at least gone beyond the absurd hypocrisy of how the only good Christian is a Republican.

People forgot how weird this seemed, in the context of the American Revolution being a rebellion against a man who was both pope and king. That ground had already shifted; before this discussion began, separation of church and state, a national cornerstone, was already meaningless.

Then Trump trumped that. This, by the way, is my favorite Donald quote of all, because of what it reveals:

“I’m not sure I have ever asked God’s forgiveness. I don’t bring God into that picture,” he said. “When I go to church and when I drink my little wine and have my little cracker, I guess that is a form of forgiveness. I do that as often as I can because I feel cleansed.”

My little wine and my little cracker? Seriously? That would be funny, were it not so strange coming from the mouth of someone claiming to be a Republican, unless everyone is lost in their dream body in a dimension where up and down, left and right, have no meaning whatsoever.

A bit earlier in the primary season, there was coverage of fundamentalist Christian leaders figuring out that many members of the flock are not really so Christian at all. They’re in it for the picnics and the social status. Many of these evangelicals don’t go to church or act especially godly. (This had to be news only to them, or maybe someone made it real by doing a video segment and it took on a more vivid form.)

Here is the thing: many people feel this way. They go to church because they’re supposed to, and then feel a little better because they did. But that is not faith.

Even Mother Teresa famously said toward the end of her life, “What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.”

“I am told God lives in me — and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul,” she wrote at one point. “I want God with all the power of my soul — and yet between us there is terrible separation.”

On another occasion she wrote: “I feel just that terrible pain of loss, of God not wanting me, of God not being God, of God not really existing.”

Planet Waves
“What do I labor for? If there be no God, there can be no soul. If there be no soul then, Jesus, You also are not true.”

There are many ways to look at this, though it’s fair to say that she and Trump with his wine and crackers speak for many who simply don’t relate to the ideas of God or of organized religion, who do it because they think they have to, or fake it for some other purpose.

It’s refreshing that we knew all those foot-tapping, affair-having, warmongering Republicans were full of shit anyway.

It is disturbing in that we lose even the thin pretense of a moral code. As Benjamin Franklin put it, “If men are so wicked as we now see them with religion what would they be if without it?” For all his wisdom, Franklin did not seem to consider that religion itself was one such source or at least propagator of evil.

This all makes perfect sense in a world where everyone is floating around the astral plane without an orientation on body, on identity, and with languishing connection to others. In harmony with the astral level, we see sharp polarization, get a chilly feeling and suspend even the broadest ideas of reason. It makes perfect sense where everything is just more newsfeed going by. It’s perfectly logical in a world where what we think of as information comes from places like Gawker and BuzzFeed.

To me the identity chaos factor here is described by Uranus conjunct Eris. As I documented this week on my two programs, the first Uranus-Eris conjunction arrived with the first TV broadcast and the first commercially licensed radio station. These were the ‘new media’ of their day that pretty much ran identity, individuality and comprehensible national identity through the blender. What we are seeing now is the hyperdimensional version of that. Because this is in Aries, it describes something of the foreground or the figure; the state of the human ego.

Planet Waves
Maybe truth, justice and the American way has fallen through the floor. About time.

Two other factors visible in the astrology further describe this condition, though more from the background.

One is Pluto in Capricorn. You might think of this as an influence that is rotting out the structures of tradition. When Chiron passed through Capricorn, Enron was revealed to be a termite-eaten facade of a business. Now that Pluto is halfway through Capricorn, every facet of American big business and banking is being revealed as a Ponzi scheme.

Remember that when Pluto ingressed Capricorn, the next thing that happened was that the subprime mortgage crisis blossomed into the Great Recession. What banks lent money to how many people claiming to make how much per year, and were packaged as securities and sold as investments to major banks and corporations? All leading to a multi-trillion-dollar bailout.

Pluto in Capricorn (2008-2022) is destroying some traditions, and it’s resurrecting others. My prediction several years ago that under this influence everything old would be new again seems to be coming true.

But we need to retrieve more than wood, glass, cast iron and revivals of every comic book character from the 1930s if we want to have any common ground. We need some return to actual, living tradition. Change is not about the slaying of all that was old, but rather the updating of our culture so that it can help guide and contain our experiences.

Our current state of psychic vertigo is driven by change so fast nobody can keep up. Either you thrust it forward as a tech giant, or you’re dragged along as a consumer/user. This really has become about change for its own sake, or rather to keep dangling a new shade of glitz in front of people to get them to take out their credit card.

Change and upheaval at the current pace are for many people a little like the astral realm known as Nightmare Alley.

There is a kind of equivalent factor going on two signs away. Neptune in Pisces (2011-2024) might feel like inspiration to some, but to others it’s like a deluge of delusion. That alone would be enough to make everything seem like a spooky dream, a seance or the astral realm known as Summerland (not the TV program but rather a false paradise sometimes found in dreams).

Planet Waves
The Log Lady (Margaret Lanternan) warns Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee) in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me: “When this kind of fire starts, it is very hard to put out. The tender boughs of innocence burn first, and the wind rises, and then all goodness is in jeopardy.”

This is the realm of sex is porn, porn is sex, look but don’t touch and overindulge in everything (because why not?). It’s about ‘my life is good, too bad for you’. It’s an astrological condition desperately in need of light and warmth, but light just reflects in the fog and heat is oppressive.

We currently have Chiron in Pisces, which is offering an opportunity for some clarity. Chiron is the person in the room full of tripping people who says, “Wow, we’re tripping. This is all so strange.” Chiron in Pisces is the person who notices that someone in the teeming crowd of Grand Central Station has collapsed, and instead of stepping over him, stops and calls for assistance. Chiron in Pisces says, “This may be a dream, but you can still show empathy. It matters.”

Chiron is an option, and it’s not one that many people choose. To most these days, it’s the person or the thing that seems too real, the question that penetrates too deeply. It’s the reminder within the dream that this is just a dream. It gives new meaning to the idea, “Nothing I see means anything.”

Except that as far as I can tell, we’re longing for meaning, and know it exists. The question is where to find it, or even where to search. Some might say within, and they would be correct. Others might say, reach out to your brothers and sisters and acknowledge their existence; they too would be correct.

Lovingly,

eric

Planet Waves (ISSN 1933-9135) is published each Tuesday and Thursday evening in Kingston, New York, by Planet Waves, Inc. Core community membership: $197/year. Editor and Publisher: Eric Francis Coppolino. Web Developer: Anatoly Ryzhenko. Designer: Lizanne Webb. Finance: Victoria Pomante. Astrology Editor: Amanda Painter. Astrology Fact Checker: Len Wallick. Copy Editor and Fact Checker: Jessica Keet. Client Services: Amy Elliott. Media Consultant: Andrew Marshall McLuhan. Research, Writing and Editing: In addition to those listed above, Planet Waves is produced by a team consisting of Fe Bongolan, Judith Gayle, Kelly Janes, Amanda Moreno and Carol van Strum.

PWFM

This Week on Planet Waves FM
Live from the Astral Plane! It’s the Uranus-Eris Conjunction

Dear Friend and Listener:

This week’s edition of Planet Waves FM [play episode here] opens up the Uranus-Eris conjunction as a commentary about our disembodied lives on the Internet. I explain how 20 years of nonstop proliferation of online life have turned the world into the astral plane, where we struggle to make sense of existence and of our bodies; where there’s no longer any sense of reality.

Planet Waves

I quote and discuss an idea from Eric McLuhan: “The body is everywhere assaulted by all of our new media, a state which has resulted in deep disorientation of intellect and destabilization of culture throughout the world. In the age of disembodied communication, the meaning and significance and experience of the body is utterly transformed and distorted.”

Later in the program, I tell the story of John Oliver buying — and then forgiving — $15 million in hospital debt in one of the funniest and most revealing media stunts in history (again under the influence of Uranus-Eris). [See fabulous video here.]

Finally, I talk about the life of, and read the chart of, Muhammad Ali, whom the New York Times aptly described as “a titan of boxing and of the 20th century.” [Read obituary here.]

The charts of Oliver and Ali are posted at this link.

Music is from just about everyone: David Byrne and Brian Eno; Bjork; Dead Can Dance; and the Planet Waves in-house ensemble, Vision Quest (with our theme from Gemini, called Letter to Urbana.

Speaking of, don’t miss The Gemini Files — your 2016-2017 reading, in audio and video formats.

With love,

You Are Having an Out-of-Body Experience Right Now

This week’s edition of Planet Waves TV dives into the mysteries of the Uranus-Eris conjunction, which aligns for the first time since 1928 on June 9. This cycle is about the impact of broadcasting on the human psyche, self-concept and world view. In effect, the Internet has induced a full-time immersion in the astral plane. As “online” becomes everywhere, we are all having nearly nonstop out-of-body experiences. This is not your usual Planet Waves TV. I am interested in your feedback. More on Planet Waves FM. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

 

What Will You Do With the Planet Waves Boutique?

“His is a truly holistic approach and what he delivers is truly one of a kind — something born of a moment that is as true in that moment as it is later on.” — Suzana Da Costa

True, at first glance, the Planet Waves Boutique holds all of Eric’s customer-favorite sign readings, broader-topic readings and class recordings. But what it really holds is potential:

Planet Waves

ENHANCE your self-understanding, and discover new ways to bring your whole self into every part of your life.

TRANSFORM fear, confusion, inner and outer conflict, anger, guilt, feeling stuck, lack of self-worth and undirected energy into starting points for productive growth and healing.

DEVELOP trust in your intuition, instincts and choices on a day-to-day basis.

INITIATE creative projects you never thought you’d get to, new relationships and deeper engagement in your community.

INSPIRE yourself to keep learning, to remain curious and to share your gifts with others.

How will you use what you find there? Visit the Boutique now, and begin to find out.

 


 

Planet Waves
“Windy” by Garry Knight via flickr; used under Creative Commons.

Get Blown Away by Your Gemini Reading

“I thought to myself that I should check Gemini, because I’m Gemini rising, and my progressed Sun recently entered Gemini too. WOW. I’m completely blown away. Certain passages are literally transcripts of my thought process about my life so far this year.”

— Dia Holly Hemlock, professional astrologer

You don’t have to be a professional astrologer like Dia to be blown away. You certainly don’t have to know what “progressed Sun” means to feel like the 2016-17 Gemini Reading contains “transcripts of your life.”

All you need to know is you — and that can mean realizing that you feel like you don’t know. Do you question your fears, dreams and desires? Or your love life, work situation, money habits or healing process? Do you feel like you could really take off and soar if only you had the right person coaching you?

These questions are Eric’s specialty.

“Once again, I can’t get over how you tick all those boxes, and more. Once again, am bowled over by your extraordinary gifts, preparation and wisdom, dear Eric, and am filled with inspiration, courage and joy by your words.”

— Liz Glanville

Eric has put together a brief complimentary preview video so you can get a sense of what he addresses — but it’s only a small taste of the insights and encouragement you’ll receive in the two audio segments (30-40+ minutes each), plus the video tarot reading for your next 12 months of life-journey. Order your Gemini Sun / Gemini Rising Reading todayor buy it for a friend.


 

Planet Waves
The Astrology Experience You Always Wanted
This brand-new three-hour session with Eric Francis will not be your average astrology class. The Astrology of Now is an experiment, as cool as any 1960s seminar. Taking the edge of astrological knowledge as the starting line, you’ll journey with your Psychedelic Professor of Ephemeris into new and exciting realms. Sign up here to get a place on the rocket bound for a fresh astrological universe.
Eric’s friendly and fun approach to teaching means this event is suitable for beginners and more advanced students alike. If you’re a first-time student we’ll even give you a discount — please write to office@planetwaves.net to take advantage of that.

 


Scopes

Your Monthly Horoscopes — and our Publishing Schedule Notes

We published your extended monthly horoscope for June on Thursday, May 26. We published your extended monthly horoscope for May on Thursday, April 21. We published your Moonshine horoscope for the Taurus New Moon, by Len Wallick, on Thursday, May 5. Please note: we normally publish the extended monthly horoscope on the first Friday after the Sun has entered a new sign.

Planet Waves

Note from the editors: In honor of today’s Uranus-Eris conjunction, we are re-running Monday’s horoscope, which is based on that chart.

Monday Morning Horoscope for June 6, 2016 | By Eric Francis Coppolino
Aries

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Feed the weird part of yourself this week: the nonconformist, the artist, the original thinker. This takes slightly more courage than doing what you might usually do, or going along with what everyone else seems to be doing. You can feed that aspect of your psyche as well, taking as few risks as possible — though if you do, you’ll be missing out on some glorious opportunities. The planets look like this: to think differently, you have to break free from the structure of your past ideas, and the past in general. This is unusually easy at the moment; everything is conspiring to draw you in that direction. Yet internally, you’re craving deeper contact with yourself. Mars, your ruling planet, has re-entered Scorpio, which is calling on you to be submissive to your own inner emotional truth. You have not reached the bottom of your journey there; stay open and guide yourself deeper. You’re doing this for one reason: liberation.

Taurus

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — You’ve arrived somewhere you’ve been before, perhaps only recently. Your challenge is to see it as a new place. The way to do that is to change your vantage point in some way, such as remembering something you learned that influenced your understanding of your life or of a relationship. You seem to be under pressure to resolve some form of indecision or uncertainty, though I suggest you keep your mind open to the possibilities. Key situations are definitely not resolved, though you may not want them to be. ‘Unresolved’ means subject to change, which in your scenario will likely be change for the better. Over the next week or so, you will be able to put words and ideas to things you’ve been thinking for a while but have not been able to consider clearly. Just make sure that clarity does not fix your viewpoint. Keep your thoughts, your eyes, your ears moving. Turn your head from side to side and notice what you see.

Gemini

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — The debate over whether love works, or is real, or lasts forever, is meaningful only to those who are obsessed by guilt. Once guilt is seen as the obstruction that it is, the nature of love becomes obvious. Yes, it’s something that you offer to the people around you; yet in our era, perhaps the greater need is to accept the love that’s offered to you. You can only have as much as you’re willing to receive, and I suggest you open all the way up and just let people care about you, feel for you and support you. You might be thinking that love and support are just not there; or “I’ll receive it when there’s more available.” That, however, is not a formula for happiness. Embrace what is offered to you. Little kids smiling at you count. Random dogs saying hello count. Your ex emailing to see how you’re doing counts. Even an honest ‘no’ gives you information about how and where to proceed: count that as a form of affirmation.

Cancer

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — You can see and feel ‘both sides’ of yourself with unusual clarity right now — so well that you might decide there are a lot more than two. Yet they aren’t separate; you are not separate from yourself. Inner division is an optical illusion, yet it can take some learning to understand that on an intuitive level. You might try a meditation for the next week or so, in various forms: I am united with myself; I am one being; I act in harmony with my own intentions; I am aligned with my creative force. It’s true that one of the most challenging spiritual quests is healing the sense of a Self divided against itself. As you explore, learn and facilitate that healing, you’ll experience many points of personal reunion; each of them beautiful, each a reclaiming of something that’s truly yours. And as you do this, you will become stronger, more honest and less easy to deceive.

Leo

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — You cannot control how other people perceive you. Try as you may, everyone is going to come up with their own idea. There is no point resisting or resenting the attention that you get, when you try so diligently to be visible and to make the right impression. It’s interesting how much energy people invest in being their own publicist, stylist and manager trying to get a grip on their image, and the mixed feelings that result. While you cannot control what others think, you can influence it. The distinction is relevant because wielding influence is different from the illusion of controlling someone’s perception. One distinction is that it would necessarily lead you to pay attention to the response you get from your environment. That will tell you a lot, and you’ll have more fun. You just need to hang loose and be more transparent. Open up and actually offer people insight into your thoughts, and notice what happens when you do.

Virgo

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — Reach for something big. Yet recognize that means offering yourself wholly to what you want. Our whole society is centered around getting right now. There seems to be little recognition that getting anything involves an exchange, and when what you want is something dear to you, something you identify with, the thing you give is yourself. This is making a good few people freaky, as it seems like they’re sacrificing something. Giving, however, is different from giving up. Offering is different from sacrificing. You expand, you grow, you become, by offering yourself. Your whole life is about growth, becoming and evolving, and if you leave out that crucial part about surrendering your energy to what you want to become, one result will be inner conflict. The question is: what benefit would you see from rolling yourself into a little ball and holding on tight? A flower blooming is a sign of life. Vulnerability not only demonstrates love; it makes love possible, and makes it real.

Planet Waves

These beautiful notebooks are pleasant to hold and high quality, and have excellent paper and binding. Eric checked out about 15 varieties before choosing these. He says he’ll add a splash of paint if you like. You can get your journal, while stocks last, by signing up for a one-year Core Community Membership at this link.
Libra

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — What limits do you suspect are wrapped around your potential? Said another way, do you decide what is possible today based on what you accomplished previously? That would be a mistake, because the definition of an accomplishment is doing something you’ve never done before. That’s the whole point. So you need a better basis for assessing what you’re capable of than the past. This would take you out of your proverbial comfort zone, though you might ask yourself how comfortable it really is in there. Or, you might ask: Does self-doubt make me feel good? And if so, why? Anyway, you can go beyond that, though you would need to tap into some long-forgotten resource or talent. There is something you know perfectly well how to do, and it holds a key to your ability and willingness to do so much else. Remember, this comes from you, not from someone else.

Scorpio

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — There’s a reason to avoid going deep into your feelings: you might learn something about yourself. It would be something you could no longer deny, and would therefore need to rearrange your life around. It looks like you can sense the potential for radical changes to your day-to-day activities, the way you structure your life and — most significantly — who you think you are. What may be making you nervous is that you don’t have any sense of who else you might be. But that’s like saying you don’t want to leave your room because you don’t know what you would find when you do. The whole point of discovering and admitting that you don’t really know who you are is so that you can enter the unknown with a sense of adventure. But you’re not really going far; you’ve been carrying a vast, unexplored world within you your whole life — and now it’s calling you.

Sagittarius

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the United States president from 1933 to 1945. He is famous for many things, including a statement about the nature of fear that they used to teach (in partial form) to schoolchildren. He said: “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” Your astrology is insisting that you have a clear, fully aware relationship to any form of anxiety, hesitation, nervousness or the bouts with outright panic that so many people experience these days. The reason you want a conscious relationship with these feelings is that it’s the only way to resolve them. You can bob, weave and dodge all you want, but you will still feel pursued by your own inner emotions. Just remember: fear and desire often masquerade for one another. You would do well to pause and ask yourself what’s really going on.

Capricorn

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — As one challenge eases, another seems to come on. Yet have you considered that this energy is coming from inside you? For many years, you’ve built your life on an idea of stability and predictability. You’ve associated an idea of consistency with being a good person. Yet did that equation serve to create either goodness or consistency? Now, any direction you want to move demands that you change. That’s because you have no choice but to grow, and growth is change, which means being different. It’s possible to try to build your life on some concrete idea of yourself, oriented mainly on being secure. Yet you’re likely to create a tense, rigid emotional state when the thing you need is to move and flow. There is so much energy rising up from your core that it would be dangerous to block it. That includes hanging around people who reward you for being stuck or narrow. Your real friends embrace you in all your contradiction and wild potential.

Aquarius

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — What you need is experience, not theory. It’s easy to chew everything over in hypothetical form, especially if you live mostly on the Internet. Genuine exploration happens through your physical body. Even if you’re a theoretical physicist, a designer of bridges or professor of philosophy, you don’t really know something for sure until there is an actual experiment performed. I suggest you set about doing that experiment, by which I mean anything prompted by an idea, which also has an uncertain outcome. You might do something like driving to an odd part of the countryside, intentionally getting lost. Visit some strange part of town or some other city, where you would never ordinarily go and where you know nobody, and do something the natives do. Take any chance to immerse yourself in unfamiliar environments, and to expose yourself to points of view you totally disagree with. That will stoke your creative (and social) fires brilliantly.

Pisces

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — Don’t take the pressure so seriously. Most of it is based on abstract thought. It’s true that you’re being called to greater things in every facet of your life simultaneously. What you’re experiencing as stress is actually energy, which can work for you or against you: that’s your choice. Therefore, it will help if you connect everything to your motivation, by which I mean take inspiration from anything in your environment. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention. It’s amazing how that can foster the efficient use of time. In that spirit, I suggest you invest no precious time waiting. Rather, make conscious choices and take action. Look at your limits and decide what to do with them, rather than merely living with them passively. Everything — by which I mean every problem or scenario — has a workaround. Learn how to identify your options and choose from among them. You have plenty.

shells

27 thoughts on “Uranus-Eris: Of God, Country and Internet

  1. Amy Elliott

    This…

    I would love to say that I disagree, but I just can’t. This absolutely, completely needs to be said. We have to find some way to wake up from the half-Orwellian, half-bad trip dreamworld we’re living in.

    The Internet was supposed to expand our consciousness, but our consciousness has not been able to keep up. As a result, our lives become lonely and soul-destroying. Part of the distorting nature of this existence is that it robs us of knowing our own power.

    While reading this article, I remembered a vivid dystopian illustration of what the future could look like if we don’t stop this madness. It’s called Hyper-Reality. Judging by an interview I saw with its creator, I got the decided impression that he didn’t realise quite how scary the film would turn out to be. (Note: be cautious if you are sensitive to flashing images.)

    1. Eric Francis Post author

      Mike, is that comment directed at the writing? I am not giving Trump any credit. He’s like the Bob Dylan of his era, picking up on the feeling already extant in the population. He gets the pass because everyone who feels the way he does (and there are many) thinks it’s fine. He is merely a phenomenon of his public.

  2. Michael MayesMichael Mayes

    I don’t know about my life becoming lonely and soul-destroying as a result of the internet either. I can’t take that on, maybe I’m dreaming, but I love the internet, and how it’s helped me expand and grow.

    1. Amy Elliott

      I love working with computers. They’re awesome devices. And to paraphrase something Eric said earlier, we have to figure out a way to work with them, because they’re here and the Internet is here, for better or worse.

      It’s the way in which the Internet has become ubiquitous and all-consuming that is so damaging to our lives.

  3. Mary

    If I may … I’ve had this little issue in my life of late in which I’ve tried repeatedly to get someone to talk to me about the (closing?) of the DC HQ for Bernie Sanders … before the actual primary for DC. Is this related to the article I read in which Bernie has had some challenge in getting on the ballot?? I don’t know. I get a ton of texts from the excited many who spend time texting eachother but not anyone answers who knows anything. It’s frustrating, esp for us oldsters who try to keep up with the electronics … and continually find the limitations.

    m.
    ps: me, too … excellent piece, Eric.

    1. Amy Elliott

      Hi Mary

      One of our readers has been posting links extensively to Facebook on this very subject. I must say it is beginning to look to me as if Hillary pulled quite a few dirty tricks to secure the nomination. This would not surprise me – she is all ambition. I’ll see what I can do about getting some of that information posted.

      1. Mary

        Thank you, Amy … I try to stay away from the conspiracy theories that drive my fellow Berniestas mad … but, there is something afoot! (yep, sounding like an oldster … ugh.)

        I do wonder, after all is said and done (and rah for the sisterhood for real) why is it that we all finally get ourselves a female democratic candidate and she’s so phony … is she sitting on her own Eris in order to win this thing?

        anyway, thank you Amy … a ton.

      2. Eric Francis Post author

        It’s essential to remember that trickery is essential in politics as the game is currently defined.

        There are tricks and there are dirty tricks. I suggest we save dirty tricks for where the term originated, in the Nixon campaign, i.e., Nixon using the IRS and the FBI to harass people. So far from what I see, Hillary is just doing the garden variety kind of trickery, combined with her political machine.

        It seems absurd but it’s somewhat legit to send out an announcement saying your opponent’s campaign event was canceled, to infiltrate their campaign. etc. That’s not an endorsement at all. I’m just saying what tends to always happen.

        1. Mary

          It’s a slippery-slope, Eric … as Nixon so deftly illustrated by his harassment, etc and ultimate criminal activity. And, of course, the fact that we haven’t heard of tricks beyond the garden variety “dirty” should not in any way lead us to believe that indeed there were none.
          m.

          1. Eric Francis Post author

            All I’m saying is that we need to be realistic and understand politics if we ever want to change it. Note that Hillary has less actual power than she has influence, presently. And nobody unambitious ever strives to be president. The question to consider is where ambition becomes hubris.

        2. Amy Elliott

          Good lord. I must be incredibly naive. Thank you for setting me straight, Eric.

          It certainly doesn’t seem as if she has done anything ultra-serious — the accusations appear to be rigged ballots, uncounted votes and the sort of things you mention.

          Here’s a report on today’s Dem Now! relevant to this issue. I’ll post the full program shortly.

          1. Eric Francis Post author

            That would be more serious. As a campaign manager, I would throw the spending limit to the four winds and fabricate a story to cover it, but I would never in my life dream of touching a ballot box. I consider manipulation of ballots to be a high crime.

            By the way, this is why I’m not a campaign manager anymore. Lying is an essential part of the job.

          2. Mary

            seems to me one of the reasons the electorate is so enraged is that our system for electing our representatives is so flawed — we are so proud of this thing called democracy (or used to be) but it’s not working. While many continue to simply say that this is just how politics IS, I submit is it not. My vote should not be deleted because the party-people decide they want someone else they deem more electable to win. This happens way too often and I’m delighted that this is come to light.

            Call it trickery or shananegans … it’s criminal and I’m hoping someone gets nailed.

            sorry for my tirade everyone.
            m.

  4. Mary

    Oh, and btw, my point was to echo your point, Amy, about how great the Internet is (thank you Al!) and electronic devises but … where the @#$! are the humans in this mishugas!
    m.

  5. aWord

    It makes sense, doesn’t it. “One is Pluto in Capricorn. You might think of this as an influence that is rotting out the structures of tradition.” And (as you point out in Tales from the Other Side) “The place was rundown and untidy — which is an invitation for dark spirits to take up residence.”
    We are rundown and untidy, we have become the invitation for dark spirits. Indeed, one could say they have long since taken up a residence (of a sort) among and within us, herding us into that house that feels both too large and too small at once. I will leave my comment there; thank you, Eric; stimulating read.

    1. Amanda PainterAmanda Painter

      “We are rundown and untidy, we have become the invitation for dark spirits. ”

      aWord — wow.

      Combined by Eric’s thoughts on what the Internet is — what spiritual level it exists on — this really gives me pause. Quite a thought to ponder.

      1. aWord

        :) Thx Amanda….along with other considerations, a little personal internet feng shui is in order, one might say. (Many old mindsets have simply found a new-fangled forum. But then, that’s the basis of so much of our conversation, isn’t it?)

  6. marie hawthorne

    “Uses for fiber optics

    Shooting light down a pipe seems like a neat scientific party trick, and you might not think there’d be many practical applications for something like that. But just as electricity can power many types of machines, beams of light can carry many types of information—so they can help us in many ways. We don’t notice just how commonplace fiber-optic cables have become because the laser-powered signals they carry flicker far beneath our feet, deep under office floors and city streets. The technologies that use it—computer networking, broadcasting, medical scanning, and military equipment (to name just four)—do so quite invisibly.”

    http://www.explainthatstuff.com/fiberoptics.html

    This suggests many things to me, but sticking with the first two:
    1. Yes, the Earth is under an energetic assault, as is everything in on and above;
    2. Some of us head for the countryside not only because it is naturally beautiful , but because that is where we can best remain grounded and centred; the environment literally energetically supports us.

    Where is god in all this? Does god prefer christian republics or republics of some other religion(s)? Does god have a preference for any particular denomination? Yea or nay, ‘How does one know’? Isaiah has a lot of food for thought (and some additional historic perspective) if the ‘little wine and little cracker’ are insufficiently filling.

    According to Isaiah [paraphrasing]
    Those who appropriate the land of others shall find themselves desolate and alone (5:8-13);
    in the peaceable kingdom of god the wolf plays with the lamb, the leopard with the goat, the cow with the bear, and lots of young children all around safe and sound (11:1-9); and,
    the proud and haughty shall be humbled, (2:12) among a great many other ideas.

    And what’s this? (49: 6)
    “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
    to restore the tribes of Jacob
    and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
    I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
    that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” said god to Isaiah.

    Oh, Isaiah is to be a light for everyone, everywhere. That seems pretty straightforward and clear. And look how long ago that was! And that ‘light’ again. Why does god have this thing about light?

    I find the whole messianic thing a bit too much for my mind to comprehend or my stomach to digest and in any case what I have learned from living in the countryside is that even if something looks really really complicated, there are some very simple principles that keep everything in motion. I think that the most amazing nature fact I have ever learned is that caterpillars and butterflies have the same DNA.

    About god? and death? I have found benefits in contemplating them together, and this works for me, for now:

    “Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
    ― Marcus Aurelius

    One last: who or what was it that finally did for Heracles? Lycas (Lichas), the servant, got the blame, as it was he that carried the poisoned shirt and gave it to Heracles to wear: but was it the shirt, the poison, or the bearer of the poisoned shirt; was it the person who made the poison (Deianira), or the centaur (Nessus) that instructed Deianira,how to make the poison? was it Deianira through her jealousy although she thought that she was delivering a fidelity potion; did Heracles bring about his own downfall by seeking Iole as another bride? was it Iole, just through being young and beautiful? maybe it was the social structure that valorized Heracles ‘alpha’ status? maybe he shouldn’t have rescued Delanira from Nessus in the first place? but then what’s a super hero supposed to do….? They all had so much energy and it seems only Nessus was holding more than very partial information. If only the others had had access to a bit more light….

    Energy. Information. Light. Love. Consciousness.
    Hmm…

  7. Kelly Grace Smith

    I wrote about this almost 5 years ago…the impact of the internet on our lives, our body, emotions, mind, and spirit.

    We are physical beings in a physical body, in a physical reality…so our “physics” are a critical aspect to our health, well-being and balance. If our physical bodies – via physical presence w/one another or via voice vibration – weren’t essential to our life on the planet, we wouldn’t need a body. We could just be disembodied brains like an old-school Star Trek episode! (The original version, of course!)

    I was able to see all this so early and so clearly, not only because that is the work I do – energy – but because I was careful from the onset of the internet and email, etc. to employ it as a tool, never allowing it to become my master. And that’s simply a function of being awake and aware to balance my use of technology with time w/real-live people, in nature, tending well (not perfectly) to all aspects of who I am: physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, creatively, and sexually.

    And, I noticed very early on that time spent on the internet impeded quite markedly my sexual and creative energy.

    It is so simple…and yet we’re unwilling to accept simplicity of it; that we have to balance all aspects of ourselves. It’s not sexy or sophisticated or woo-woo enough…but then again, most universal truths aren’t. They’re just…simple.

    We’re fast becoming a society in which folks have a very difficult time separating their inner “Self” from all the media, money, marketing, advertising, and technology; we must develop the ability to cut through that clutter every day or our tools will indeed, run our lives. (Just as the science fiction authors of the 1960’s & 1970’s predicted.) Separating from the mass consciousness in order to connect to ourselves, one another, nature, and our God – whomever or whatever “God” is for you – is imperative.

    …Kelly Grace Smith

  8. shoye

    Holy Crap, Eric! Your critique of the inter webs as an astral freak show is amazing. You’ve knocked it out of the park. This is great stuff. Thanks so much!

  9. Kelly Grace Smith

    The internet isn’t expanding our inner consciousness, it’s expanding the mass consciousness; that is, the consciousness of what most people believe; that’s the paradigms and perceptions and illusions and delusions and beliefs of most people, the “body” of energy that is the consciousness of the mass. Tolle called it the “pain body.”

    The purpose of the mass consciousness is to provide the opportunity to see all those beliefs, illusions, paradigms, etc. and then juxtapose them to what YOU see and know and believe…from within. Now of course, the internet can expose you to ideas, etc. that create openings for you…the problem is that people aren’t balancing time on technology with time in nature, with other people, etc. And, they’re “attaching” to the energy of the internet. That’s why you see people who can’t go anywhere or do anything without checking their phone every few minutes, including when they are driving.

    Combine that with the “energy of money” that is so predominant on the internet, and you’ve got a pretty potent addictive energy going!

    We humans are so clever, we created a way to teach ourselves what we need to see and know. We created a tool – technology – that is a double-edged sword, in order to give ourselves the opportunity to decide exactly how we will use that sword…to become more absorbed in the mass consciousness? Or to reach for more of who we are and a higher level of consciousness, creativity, well-being…and the acceptance of our shared humanity? Which will it be?
    …Kelly Grace Smith

  10. Eric Francis Post author

    Regarding technology: remember that the mother of all tech developments was the alphabet. Here is a short summary of techno developments that I wrote for Amy the other day.

    I saw my dad last night (he turned me onto McLuhan when my feet couldn’t touch the floor sitting in a chair). He explained “medium as message” this way.

    No tweet changes your life. But Twitter changed the world, making expressing an idea in 140 characters not only seem normal but the general trend of intellect. The message of Twitter is not a tweet, it’s what Twitter does to society. The medium (environment) of the tweet is the message (effect) of total dumbing down as acceptable.

    Now you can apply this to anything.

    There are four major phases that I see, going back to the Thema Mundi (or whenever the Greek alphabet shows up, I guess circa 800 BCE; TM is about 400 BCE so they are close).

    1. The phonetic alphabet focuses vision (eyesight) in a new way, throwing all the senses out of alignment. Suddenly meaningless glyphs take on the power of god, permanent memory, remote enforcement of law, etc. This pushes subject-object separation for the first known time. Figure and ground are taken apart and seen as separate, or rather, ground is not seen at all. The environment itself disappears.

    2. The book circa 1450 further cultivates the idea of individuation. There is now “inner life and outer life” as separate (we deal with this as astrologers all the time). The idea of an individual as we know it sprouts with the alphabet and fully takes hold with the book. Group identity (the tribe) disappears into a blend of nationalism and individuality.

    3. Electronic media turn this totally upside down and inside out. It begins with the telegraph in the early 1800s, which though not mass media, represents the collapse of space and time (initiating a kind of vertigo, and a merger with the astral level). The major public consciousness event, though, starts circa 1928 (Uranus-Eris Aries Part 1). Individual identity is again lost. Tribalism is revived. The group mind comes back. Note, the advent of electric light circa 1900 represents another kind of vertigo, turning night to day.

    With electronic media, time and space are collapsed and rendered meaningless; people are disembodied by the instant movement of information, no matter what information it is. The content as such does not matter (whether it’s chess or the affairs of state being sent over telegraph — the telegraph changes us, not the ‘content’).

    4. The Internet further pushes this disembodied collapse of reality, thrusting physical reality on to the astral level (but in violation of the ‘suspension of linear time and physical space’ property of the astral, everything is time stamped; it is very much a web). We are now dealing with this disembodiment as it’s increasing exponentially.

    Note the accelerating pace of change. The transistor emerges as a practical thing in 1948 but it is patented…get this…1925-1928. Eris in Aries, Uranus conjunct Eris in Aries.

    “Physicist Julius Edgar Lilienfeld filed a patent for a field-effect transistor (FET) in Canada in 1925, which was intended to be a solid-state replacement for the triode.[4][5] Lilienfeld also filed identical patents in the United States in 1926[6] and 1928.[7][8]”

  11. d c

    I appreciate the article and comments… so much insight and wisdom.
    The complexities driving the forces of life are challenging.
    As our consciousness evolves the dualistic behaviors
    are taxing when we observe the lack of truth and integrity within society.
    I have felt a sense of loss.
    I’m beginning to believe in leading with the heart.
    One of becoming a conduit, like a fiber-optic cable, of
    shedding more light on the dark night of our human existence.
    It’s as if I/we need to integrate a more of heart-centered approach
    to transcend the limitations of the head to find my/our way
    back to being at peace and finding deeper connections.

Leave a Reply