PLANET WAVES by Eric Francis
For the week of June 11, 1999

ARIES (March 21-April 19)
There's something you've learned about yourself from the reflections and events of past months. Perhaps it's something you did not recognize or don't like; perhaps it is something about yourself that is necessary and valid. In any case, you know this revelation is compelling you to actually change something about yourself and the way you live, not just the way you think or see. And making changes requires strength, and a measure of guts, and the necessary opportunities for progress. No matter how frustrating the recent delays along these lines have been, you can trust that they were for a good reason, and are now over.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
If people treated the choice of where to work for as cautiously and cautiously as we treat who to have sex with, most of us would be unemployed for months on end. And if we treated sex with as little regard for our souls and happiness as who we often treat our choice of who to work for, we'd be suffering from countless diseases and endless misery in our relationships. What I'm saying is that most of us are like prostitutes in our employment choices. Not everyone; but most people. Right around now, you may be met by real opportunities to improve your sense of self-worth, especially about what you're willing to do to make your bread.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
We all know that Gemini is the sign of the twins, but nobody really knows what that feels like. There are other dualistic signs, but none quite so pronounced as yours. Now as a Gemini, you will tend to incarnate into one or the other of your twin selves, and when you do, you may totally lose awareness or memory that you were ever the other. However, at the moment, you are entering the zone of unity, in which the two of you will mysteriously, totally and -- remember -- momentarily merge into one being with full awareness of who you are in totality. It would be a very handy thing to remember.

CANCER (June 21-July 22)
Your house of hearth and home has been wrought with consternation, complication and constipation through much of the spring, but if my measurements of the cosmic angles are correct, that's all likely to be dissolving now, and yielding to your own will to grow, change and make progress in your life. For a while you adapted to the difficulty; now the difficulty will be adapting to you. Remember, you are not seeking perfect balance or a trophy for people-pleasing. You are seeking a state of mind in which it is okay to state not just your needs, but your desires; not just to live with your fears, but to grow beyond them.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22)
Everyone has a gift for the culture; or rather, everyone IS a gift to the culture. Schools teach us all to be the same and punish us for expressing individuality. You are powerfully individual, and such nonsense may have instilled some deep conflicts about your real worth as a contributor to the world we share, making you wonder whether, in the midst of all your beauty, strength and power, whether you're even worth a damn in practical terms. I'm here to remind you not to fall for it, and not to put your mind through the painful wringer of doubt. True, to succeed, you will need to eventually break from much of what we call the past, but so what? The world is waiting for you, and you for it.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
How could you have missed what was so clear all along? Could it be that, guarding your sense of safety and security, you chose to see things the way you wanted? Could it be that in protecting your interests, you were willing to make compromises that you never would have otherwise made, had you not felt somehow forced into your circumstances? One aspect of the history of relationships in our culture is the tale of what people think they can do to control one another. Rather than being immoral, this is truly impossible. Life is not about control, it is about making decisions, and that, I suspect, just got easier for you.

LIBRA (Sep. 23-Oct. 22)
Guilt blocks vision. When we inwardly feel guilty about something we want, we can become blind to its reality. What you have now is an rare combination of influences working on two levels -- one of them being desire, and the other being open-mindedness (the real opposite of guilt). Desire is starting to actually work for you rather than against you. And your mind is starting to open up like to the vast possibilities. Together, the two factors should create a rather amazing combination, but the magic will work this way: know what you want, what you really, really want, and you'll have an excellent chance of getting it.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
The struggle, greed and pain of this world involve the secret fear of personal mortality. We deny our fear of death, and then that fear manifests as all the catastrophe we see, and serves as the hidden rationale for all the pain that people in positions of power cause us and one another. There is an escape formula: Take a good look at death. Recognize you do not know what it is. Commit to a conscious relationship with the fact that, at some point in the future, this entity known as "you" will change profoundly. This will take away your concern about all the other changes and challenges you face, and give you a handle on life and creativity you probably never imagined you'd have.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23-Dec. 21)
For some years, Pluto has been pushing you to live in ways more isolated than you ever thought you would. Sagittarius is an outgoing, optimistic sign. Pluto is a silent, introverted agent, who makes us live and choose by compulsion rather than vision. But with the Gemini New Moon approaching, the focus of your life now shifts to opportunities with other people, perhaps new people, and new ways to consider and explore your current relationships. If you really want this to happen, here is my suggestion: keep no secrets. Share everything, from your desires to your resentments to your greatest dreams. Doors will surely open.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)
Recent months have seen annoying delays in aspects of your life involving professional affairs, and possibly some kind of complication with the government or a large company. You're quite accustomed to a sense of mastery over such matters, and these delays and struggles may seem to have taught you that you're not always the boss. In fact, real mastery over worldly matters often involves waiting for your opportunities, and spotting them. You do this by patience, and also by keeping your eyes open and your mind poised for decision all the time. This weekend and week, hang out in the HERE and NOW. It is pregnant with opportunity.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 19-Feb. 18)
Two compelling Aquarians recently mentioned that they have a block involving what they call "meditation." I have never been much of a meditator, so I am not a good source of advice on the subject. But I just looked the word up, and it turns out to mean not a fancy spiritual technique, but rather, "To reflect upon, to ponder, to contemplate." As it turns out, I do a lot of this. I learned how from reading, but a special kind of reading in which I needed to penetrate into the core reality of an issue or an idea; in my case, it was usually fraud (a necessary meditation for any investigative journalist), and in contemplating the nature of systematic lies, I was able to come to an understanding of the truth. Try it, hmmm?

PISCES (Feb. 19-Mar. 20)
You really can afford to push your luck, and not just because you're so lucky. More because, at the moment, you are so committed to your own cause, and you are tapping into the inevitable power base that comes from such a state of self-alignment. It's as if you know intuitively that good things are manifesting for you, and so you're not botching up your reality with the kinds of common fear that roll off all the other signs, but which penetrate and poison your sensitive emotions and soft astral bodies to the point of paralyzing you. Learning to preserve this state of fearless being, on a continuous basis, will become one of your most valuable life assets.

FOR THE FAITHFUL
Between March 19 and last Friday, we lived through something called Mars retrograde. Given what this condition did in world events, I suspect that it wreaked its share of havoc on the private circumstances of many people, or at least put a number of you through a kind of stress test you'd prefer (and be wise) not to repeat. The retrograde is officially over, and the feeling may be like the power back coming on in your house after a long blackout. Mars now becomes the agent of change astrologically, and is in forward-motion toward the great total solar eclipse of August 11. These are important weeks in which we will have opportunities for tremendous progress, but as the Quakers wisely say, tread lightly on the face of the Earth.++

One Way (or Another) - Planet Waves Essay for June

Feature Article on Mumia Abu-Jamal

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