Somewhere In Between Dear Friend and Reader: Friday into Saturday arrives with a series of astrological moments that combine into a gem, focused on Pisces. Today Mercury stations direct, Saturday Mars stations retrograde and overnight between them is the Pisces New Moon. The Moon-Sun conjunction (that is, the New Moon) happens in the midst of two personal planets making stations, barely moving in the sky.
Today's horoscope section for your Sun sign and rising sign below is an extended edition that covers this confluence of events. Meanwhile, I have some house announcements. As part of my 50th birthday/Chiron return festivities planned for next weekend, I will be taking a couple of weeks off from most of my Planet Waves writing. Issues will continue Tuesdays and Fridays during that time; I will have less of a presence and return in full force on Friday, March 21, with the April monthly forecasts. Meanwhile, I won't be writing the full horoscopes for all the signs but I will be writing for Pisces. On Fridays, we'll have something else for the rest of the signs -- some good ideas are brewing. I plan to finish the Aquarius and Pisces birthday readings within a couple of days (they are still available at pre-order price and include two audio chapters of astrology and a tarot reading, plus an extended written description of your sign). I will be doing a new Planet Waves FM and Music Hour with Dan Sternstein this week, and probably the week after. This is not exactly a vacation, but you should see the list of what I won't be doing. By the way, if you haven't ventured over to Planet Waves FM, I suggest you do. When I came up with the current Planet Waves business plan in 2007, nudged along by a commodities trader willing to invest $500K into Planet Waves, one of my top priorities was an Internet radio station. We declined the investment money but kept the business plan. Planet Waves FM is one of its most brilliant features. Have a look -- it's a beautiful thing. Mercury Stationing Direct -- Nobody is Complaining Every Mercury retrograde is weird. Some are weirder than others. Astrologically the one that's ending today gets bonus points because Mars stations retrograde the next day, accented by the Pisces New Moon. The starry dynamo of the night is churning out some interesting chaos patterns. In the midst of this Mercury retrograde, there was a series of blizzards that on several occasions scrambled air and ground traffic along the entire East Coast. The city of Kingston, N.Y., where I live, went on a snow ordinance towing spree and has had to dismiss many of the tickets and refund many towing and storage fees charted by its corrupt contractors.
Oh yeah, the Winter Olympics came and went without incident -- just a huge fuss brewing in Ukraine next door. The news of the world is once again rushing by so fast it's difficult to figure out what to focus on -- if you care to notice at all. Let's take a fast survey. Here is my favorite headline of the entire Mercury retrograde: "Swiss teacher accidentally shows X-rated amputee porn on overhead projector." Article summary: "While students at KV Zurich Business School studied, an educator tried to secretly watch his fetish porn -- one problem, he forgot to turn off the overhead projector." Imagine the responses from students. [Note, I had never heard of amputee porn. So I Googled it, but none of the images are appropriate to use here.] In New Jersey, Mercury retrograde has manifested as the former bridge tollgate blocking scandal (what I call Tollgategate) becoming a "the whole government" scandal. The station-direct has arrived with a raft of previously released documents being made available without redactions, adding lots of color and detail to the bridge piece of the story. The larger issue is the revelation of how government is bought and sold in that state, which is starting to look a lot like Tammany Hall -- the totally corrupt, pre-Civil Service government of New York City. Meanwhile, in other news, protests in Ukraine led to the ousting of Viktor Yanukovych. Protesters armed with sticks, rocks and coke bottles full of gasoline stood up to a paramilitary force shooting at them with live ammo and forced the guy to flee Kiev. Under his orders, police killed some 80 protesters before Parliament took over the government and kicked him out of office. It is true that some of the protesters raided an armory and had real weapons, but that is hardly leveling the playing field against a government-organized army.
Meanwhile, there are reportedly Russian flags flying over the Crimean capital at the moment, and there were news reports Thursday of Putin amassing 150,000 troops along the Ukrainian border as part of a war game exercise that Russia claims is unrelated to the recent unrest. When I titled an article "Back in the USSR" a few weeks ago, I did not mean to imply that Putin would be trying to bring back the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, but that seems to be his intent. All of the charts I've seen for Ukraine have planets aligned with the cardinal grand cross (including the Uranus-Pluto square) that has been taking shape for years and which will reach a full peak on April 23. This is also true for Yanukovych, who has a volatile mix of planets in mid-Libra (Mars conjunct Neptune) and Cancer (Mercury, Sun and Uranus conjunct). In Venezuela, mass protests there finally started to get some attention in the U.S. media after Pres. Nicolas Maduro, who succeeded Hugo Chavez after he died last year, tried to throw CNN out of the country. There's no better way to focus the media than to pick on it. I would say that someone should write an article explaining this to petty tyrants, but it's probably better if they have to figure it out through trial and error. The protests erupted in Caracas in January after actress and former Miss Venezuela Monica Spear was killed during a roadside robbery with her five-year-old daughter in the car. The protests are focusing on the crime problem (70 murders a day) and inflation (above 50% a year) and little problems, like the fact that it's considered a crime to mention the inflation rate in a newspaper. Since Feb. 13, as the death toll mounted, more than 2,000 stories from Venezuela have been uploaded to iReport, CNN's user-generated platform. They describe many ugly scenes, such as police going door to door terrorizing people, along with the usual crackdowns in the street.
Venezuela's 1811 independence chart features the Capricorn Full Moon going right across the mid-cardinal signs, directly in alignment with the cardinal grand cross (including the Uranus-Pluto square). And protests came to a peak in Thailand this week as citizens called for the ouster of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who they allege is a puppet of her billionaire brother, the deposed, exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. There were deadly clashes between police and protesters as police began attempts to clear sites occupied by protesters for months. The Thailand chart has the Sun in mid-Aries, aligned with the cardinal grand cross. Syria is still a mess, warlords are vying for political office in Afghanistan, and the U.S. and Mexico busted Joaquin Guzman, one of the most infamous drug lords in the world. The chart is a piece of work -- very similar to the chart for the ouster of Viktor Yanukovych some hours earlier, featuring a slippery alignment of the Moon, the Sun, Chiron and the ascendant. But the real kicker in the Guzman bust chart is how the United States Sibly chart shows up -- the two charts align to the degree. I predict that Guzman will be extradited to the U.S. and offered a plea deal where he becomes vice president of a major American pharmaceutical company. Either that or he will escape again, since he seems to have more firepower than Mexico itself. Mars Retrogrades Toward an American Spring If you're seeing a pattern here, that all the countries where protests and unrest are erupting have planets aligned with the cardinal grand cross, it might not shock you to learn that the U.S. fits this pattern -- only even more precisely than the other charts. By that, I mean very, very precisely. The grand cross that's now forming involves Mars, Jupiter, Uranus and Pluto aligning at 13+ degrees of the cardinal signs (in order of the planets listed, Libra, Cancer, Aries and Capricorn). This is not chicken shit. Mars is bringing the Uranus-Pluto square to a peak, and Jupiter is there to magnify things and provide a bit of protection and a reminder that this is all an opportunity.
Mars is about to station retrograde in late Libra, and will backtrack into alignment with the other planets, arriving exactly on April 23. If you ask me, we are about to experience an American Spring. April is often a weird and eventful month in American history. Come April we'll have an article telling you just how weird and eventful, going all the way back to the battles of Lexington and Concord. I don't know if the U.S. Sun has ever taken more significant transits than it's about to take but I would be stretched to invent something more intense than what is brewing. We are talking about the Uranus-Pluto square here, and we are talking about doing the one thing that tends to bring Uranus-Pluto aspects right to the forefront -- add the energy of personal planets (such as Mars) or transpersonal planets (such as Jupiter). While the U.S. ignores most of its most important problems (poverty, crumbling infrastructure, a bloating oligarchy leaching the resources out of the people, an economy that seems to be running on fumes) there is some progress being made on social issues. Same-sex marriage prohibition and cannabis prohibition seem to be crumbling under some simultaneous influence. While both issues have long histories, I reckon that influence is the Uranus-Pluto square and Chiron and Neptune in Pisces. Society is never the same after these kinds of aspects go by.
It may have been one of those things that everyone just knew up until the Sixties, then it was forgotten, along with a bunch of other useful information. Yes, I agree that cannabis competes with tobacco, alcohol, the chemical industry and many, many pharmaceuticals; the hemp plant and resulting cannabis variety are about as all-purpose as you can get, good for making everything from clothing to paper to medicine. However, smoking pot has a way of gently reducing sexual inhibitions, opening the door to about the two-drink level, but then you get to go through the door instead of getting fall-down drunk. Then it does something extra -- it stokes sexual curiosity, physical and emotional sensitivity and psychic vulnerability. That can lead to some very, very pleasant and interesting sex. It can also get you into water a little deeper than you planned to swim out into, so I suggest getting some experience before experimenting with partners. Cannabis is the libation of the Jazz Age (recall from that era the term "jass me baby" meaning "do me!"). Homeopathic guru Rajan Sankaran describes its sensation as the most pleasant of all substances in the materica medica. Homeopathic doctor, author and teacher Frans Vermeulen speculates that it's one of the plants that led to the invention of agriculture. Friend of sailors, cancer and MS patients, people who want to unwind after a long day, teenagers and old people, spiritual seekers and music lovers, philosophers and artists, it remains a true fact. Cannabis quite often makes people horny, and frees them from their inhibitions without making them blotto or feel so good they want to puke. Cannabis is cultivated by depriving female plants of male pollen. The plants secrete THC-containing resin in order to catch the one stray grain of pollen that might be in the environment, but there is none. So they build and build sexual energy, get all wet and sticky with resin, which contains the THC, and that is what the human brain responds to. Basically, cannabis is sex in a plant -- a desperately horny female plant. So this is not mere theorizing; the doctrine of signatures (similar energy impressions up and down the chain of ideas and substances) works pretty well.
Colorado is apparently doing very well in that regard. If you want to perform a scientific experiment, you can draw a bath, light a candle, take one hit of good weed and, you know, just relax for a little while and see what happens. So I count this as progress. Progress, that is, set amidst a lot of other problems. Like wealthy leach despots sucking all the wealth out of the population, exactly like a banana republic. I will leave you with what in my opinion was the most interesting domestic news story of the week. This issue describes just what Americans have to be angry about and how paranoid the government is that anything but it will have any power at all. Glenn Greenwald, the writer for The Guardian who broke the Edward Snowden story, has started a new indie journalism project called The Intercept. In an article this week, he described how American intelligence agencies are attempting to manipulate and control online discourse with extreme tactics of deception and reputation-destruction. Greenwald published documents that detail how intelligence agencies pump out disinformation designed to sway public discourse. This is an old story; even horoscope columns have been used by intelligence agencies as propaganda (in particular during WW II, when it seems that 'anything goes' became fashionable), and the CIA has at times had many, many major media outlets and local newspapers at its disposal to make something into a story or make sure it does not become one. The program includes tactics for making various false claims that are designed to destroy people's trust and standing in the community. This happens, for example, with fake blog posts and social media updates that portray someone as an attacker of some kind (known as fake victim blog posts). "Honey traps" -- that is, sexual lures -- are used to compromise people. It goes on and on.
Why would they go to all this trouble? There is a reason. They are worried about something. I suggest we take note of this. The something they are worried about is little old you and me and our friends, one day waking up and deciding we care, and that we have had enough. These programs are like a self-preservation immune response of the government-corporate structure, but more like metastasis. As Mars moves into position and completes the grand cross, a heck of a lot of people may decide they care -- and it really does not take that many to shake things up or knock them over. We, the American people and anyone influenced by the actions of the U.S., have a lot to be concerned about and angry about. And if that sentiment catches on, it could really get going. To me it looks like something this spring does exactly that. Remember, though -- astrology works from the inside out. Changes sweep through society because individuals awaken. It may seem like we see something outside ourselves and wake up, but I don't think that's the way it works. Nearly everyone has some significant point in their chart aligned with the Uranus-Pluto square and the corresponding grand cross. Many people I read for have concentrations around these points. So you, too, may feel the awakening and the call to grow and change, and you may very well feel the resulting ripple effect. I wish you a very happy Pisces New Moon. Lovingly,  Section Writing and Editing Credits: News items below are written and edited by a team consisting of Hillary Conary, Anne Craig, Eric Francis, Elizabeth Michaud, Amanda Painter, Susan Starr, Chad Woodward and Carol van Strum. Coordinating Editor: Elizabeth Michaud. Page assembled and coded by Anatoly Ryzhenko. Special thanks to the Fact Checkers List, which goes over each edition on Thursday night -- and to our main astrology fact-checker Alex Miller, and Amanda, who goes over all their suggestions. Our editions are also proofread and fact-checked by Jessica Keet. 
Pisces New Moon, Suspended in TimeOver the next couple days, we will experience a cluster of three events, none of which is special on its own, but which combined offer us a moment with many interesting opportunities.
The retrograde began in Pisces, with Mercury very close to Neptune. Mercury has backtracked into Aquarius. The imagery reminds me of the water-bearer dipping her cask into Pisces and bringing back some of that nourishing water to share with others, which is the essence of Aquarius at its best. This has, however, been a challenging Mercury retrograde for many people, between snowstorms, travel delays, tickets and car impounds and the usual diversity of financial issues and technical madness. I've heard of someone getting their bank account shut down after they didn't respond to an email; someone else having the IRS come after a tax refund, claiming Social Security payments made to their family when the person was a kid; and other scenarios of this kind. I've mentioned that we live in a kind of Mercury age, where nearly everything about us comes under the rulership of this meaningful, little planet. The other thing that gives Mercury retrogrades more impact is how tightly wound everything is, how compact our schedules and commitments are, and how many people are running their lives with next to no excess cash. So when something goes wrong, it can have a house of cards effect.
In between these two events, the Pisces New Moon happens. Pisces, floating in water, drifting in the imagination, not fully in this world, can have a weightless quality. We give Pisces its form and substance through experimenting with creativity. Not only is the Pisces New Moon situated close to the midpoint (in time) of two planetary events, it's positioned (in space) close to the midpoint of two planets in Pisces -- Neptune and Chiron. It happens as Mercury and Mars are barely moving at all. Situated between Chiron and Neptune, it evokes a hybrid of intuition and information; of creativity and practical application; of healing as a conscious practice and spiritual inflow as a natural birthright. And it's happening almost as we speak. 
Venezuela: Ban the Media to Get Extra CoverageA ban on CNN? Sounds like a great idea, right? It is if you want to get the attention of the American media, when before you had next to none. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the successor to Hugo Chavez, accused the American network of inciting civil war in his country, and revoked their press credentials. In a live television broadcast Maduro warned, "Enough war propaganda, I won't accept war propaganda against Venezuela. If they don't rectify themselves, out of Venezuela, CNN, out."
The Mercury retrograde factor in this equation is that Pres. Marduro's intent in revoking CNN's press credentials was to get less news coverage. He may not have realized there was close to a media blackout in the U.S. until he started to mess with CNN, and then suddenly there was a story that everyone wanted to cover. You might call this the 'pissing into the wind' factor of Mercury retrograde. The Aquarius factor is that Mercury is stationing direct today in an exact conjunction to Mars in the Venezuela constitution chart. This is exposing and bringing an underlying hostility by the government toward its people. Read more... 
Note to Readers: Monsanto Watch is being spun off as its own publication. If you would like to receive mailings Friday afternoon that include Monsanto coverage and other environmental news, please sign up here. There is additional environmental coverage of the New Mexico radiation leak at this link, please click and scroll down. USDA Finds GMO Seeds Offer No Great Advantages A report released last week by the USDA finds using GMO crops does not always produce greater yield and "high farmer use of a popular herbicide [glyphosate] on GMO crops is a cause for ongoing concern.” What's significant here is not that any of this is news, but that the government is admitting it.
"We are not characterizing them (GMO crops) as bad or good. We are just providing information," said Michael Livingston, a government agricultural economist and one of the authors of the report, prepared by the USDA's Economic Research Service (ERS). The ERS researchers said over the first 15 years of commercial use, GMO seeds have not been shown to definitively increase yield potentials, and "in fact, the yields of herbicide-tolerant or insect-resistant seeds may be occasionally lower than the yields of conventional varieties," the ERS report states. Herbicide use on GMO corn is rising, the report states. Herbicide use on GMO corn increased from around 1.5 pounds per planted acre in 2001 to more than 2.0 pounds per planted acre in 2010. Read more...  Back to Business as Usual in Russia The Olympic flame had barely been extinguished before the Russian government returned to its punitive ways (not that it had exactly stopped during the games). Hundreds of protesters, including two prominent members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot, were arrested during a mass demonstration in Moscow on Monday. In what had seemed like an attempt to gain international favor, Putin granted amnesty to 20,000 prisoners just before the Sochi games, including opposition activists like Pussy Riot's Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina. Yet all bets were off once the global spotlight turned away.
The Daily Beast reports one witness as saying, "People were close to me, just doing nothing, just observing like me. Then we saw 30 OMON [riot police] guys just walking around and an older one told a younger one, 'Don't be afraid. You need to start arresting people and I will show you how to do it.'" Lawyers of the seven defendants are linking the harsh reaction to the current situation in Kiev, Ukraine. Defense lawyer Dmitry Agranovsky said, "These sentences are cruel and wrong. They were handed down because of the political situation." The message is one of authoritarian control -- clearly, protests will not be tolerated in Russia. Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina are, unfortunately, no strangers to imprisonment. They were arrested on charges of hooliganism in March 2012, after a punk rock performance in Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the Savior entitled "Punk Prayer -- Mother of God, Chase Putin Away!" After almost two years enduring harsh jail conditions, the women were released on Dec. 23, 2013. They'd planned to perform another song, "Putin Will Teach You to Love the Motherland" in Sochi earlier this month, but were arrested (and quickly released) in connection with a theft in their hotel on Feb. 18, and were then publicly beaten by Cossack security the very next day while attempting to film the song's music video at Sochi Olympic Park. Now the punk rockers find themselves detained indefinitely near the Kremlin for showing solidarity with other anti-Putin activists.   What if Google Was a Guy? Mercury retrograde is almost over, but its shenanigans are going strong for many people -- including mistyped and misunderstood Internet communications. But even when Mercury is direct, sometimes there's no accounting for the search terms we type into Google; it's often a miracle we manage to find what we're looking for. A video by College Humor titled, “What if Google Was a Guy?” imagines what it might be like if a human being was on the other end of our web browsing, doggedly trying to match what we type with what we're really looking for. Who needs Mercury the Trickster when we don't even type full sentences?  Pisces New Moon, Mercury Direct, Mars Retrograde This week Mercury goes direct, followed by the Pisces New Moon and Mars stationing retrograde. All of these things happen within about 24 hours, so it's an unusual sequence of events -- get ready for some changes, a reshuffling of your priorities and making some unusual progress. I also talk about Jupiter square Uranus, which is one piece of the 2014 grand cross that will be exact on April 24 -- what is likely to come with American Spring. For additional resources and the chart, please see the full post. An Evening with Wolfgang (and Dan and Eric) In this week's edition of Dan and Eric's Music Appreciation Hour, we absolutely positively appreciate Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Our music selection includes a trio divertimento, a symphony, an opera and a few other bits and bobs, ending with “name that tune.” Here are the charts of Mozart's birth and death and his progressions at the time of his death. For additional resources and the chart, please see the full post.  Have you ordered your 2014 readings by Eric Francis yet? The Mars Effect (our 16th annual edition!) has just published, and includes in-depth audio and written readings for your Sun, Moon and rising signs. We always receive a flood of positive feedback for these readings, and it shows just how meaningful they are. One customer wrote, "Every minute of Eric's reading is worth gold." We're offering you a special package price of $79 for all twelve signs, available only to current Planet Waves members. Or you may purchase individual signs for $29.95.  Your Monthly Horoscopes -- and our Publishing Schedule Notes We published your extended monthly horoscopes for March Friday, Feb. 21. We published your extended monthly horoscopes for February on Friday, Jan. 24. We published Moonshine horoscopes for the Leo Full Moon Tuesday, Feb. 11. Moonshine horoscopes for the Pisces New Moon published Tuesday, Feb. 25. Please note, we normally publish the extended monthly horoscope on the first Friday after the Sun has entered a new sign.  Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Feb. 28, 2014, #989| By Eric Francis  Looking for an in-depth astrology reading? Order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $79 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones). You may also order individual signs for $29.95 here.
 Looking for an in-depth astrology reading? Order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $79 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones). You may also order individual signs for $29.95 here.
 Looking for an in-depth astrology reading? Order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $79 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones). You may also order individual signs for $29.95 here.
 Looking for an in-depth astrology reading? Order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $79 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones). You may also order individual signs for $29.95 here.
 Looking for an in-depth astrology reading? Order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $79 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones). You may also order individual signs for $29.95 here.
 Looking for an in-depth astrology reading? Order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $79 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones). You may also order individual signs for $29.95 here.
 Looking for an in-depth astrology reading? Order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $79 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones). You may also order individual signs for $29.95 here.
 Looking for an in-depth astrology reading? Order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $79 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones). You may also order individual signs for $29.95 here.
 Looking for an in-depth astrology reading? Order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $79 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones). You may also order individual signs for $29.95 here.  Looking for an in-depth astrology reading? Order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $79 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones). You may also order individual signs for $29.95 here.   Looking for an in-depth astrology reading? Order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $79 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones). You may also order individual signs for $29.95 here.
  Looking for an in-depth astrology reading? Order THE MARS EFFECT, your 2014 annual readings, for a special rate of $79 for all twelve signs. It's a great package of audio and written readings that gives you access to your Sun, rising and Moon signs (and those of your loved ones). You may also order individual signs for $29.95 here.
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