Mercury Retrograde: Watch Your Speed Dear Friend and Reader: When the dust settles on the wreck of Amtrak 188, and all the facts come out, I think the cause will turn out to be something simple: for example, the train's driver not paying attention to the speed limit.
Something like a speed limit sign. Something like the obviously safe speed for a stretch of track just a few minutes north of Philadelphia's 30th Street Station. The curve where the train derailed was rated at 50 mph. The stretches of track before and after the curve were rated at 70 mph. The train was doing 106 mph when it went off the rails, killing eight and injuring more than 200 people, many of them critically. The train's engineer, Brandon Bostian, is probably going to take all the blame. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone has lapses of attention. It's just that the stakes are a lot higher when you're driving a train than driving a car, though one lapse of attention behind the wheel can easily kill and injure many people. Mercury is slow and powerful right now, in one of its signs of rulership -- Gemini -- about to station retrograde. It's doing all of this in a square to Neptune in Pisces. That could indicate the influence of drugs or alcohol, which Bostian has denied, through his attorney. But we may also be looking into a reality gap. Do kids still play with electric trains, even the ones who want to become train drivers? Anyone who has knows that you must only do one thing to keep the train on the tracks -- slow down on a curve. You might think that's obvious, but our generations of video game kids may not understand much about actual physics in 3D reality. I think a lot of younger cops have the same problem: people you kill don't come back to life. Mercury square Neptune is the original space-out aspect. Nobody needs drugs or alcohol for that in our current digital environment, though they can easily be a factor that would complicate things. The aspect also has a reputation for presenting some challenges discerning truth from fantasy, which can happen with or without substances. Denial is in itself a kind of drug, one of the favorites of our society.
[If you have any contact between Mercury and Neptune in your natal chart, I suggest you get all the details on your aspect, so you can work with it productively. You need to get both planets working together rather than at cross-purposes.] There was a diversity of other factors involved in the train wreck chart. For example, Amanda Painter noted that Mars, newly in Gemini, looks like something flying down the rails, crashing into a regulation, or the laws of Newtonian physics -- Saturn retrograde in Sagittarius. That aspect, close in the accident chart, is exact Friday. That comes with a caution, about arguing with people who have intractable ideas. Be careful not to overstate your case; make sure you listen to what is said right on the surface level. The chart describes some kind of social scenario -- such as someone's wife found out that he has a girlfriend, they were arguing about it by text or cell phone, and things went out of control. Federal officials have the train operator's phone; we may find out what's on it. It's fair to say that everyone is looking for an explanation of how this happened, but with Mercury and Neptune involved as they are, logic may be hard to come by. An actual cause may not be easily forthcoming, and what investigators finally conclude (at least in their press release) may lack credibility. I would propose that logic, reason and rationality are going to be important tools over the next few weeks as Mercury, Mars and Neptune dance around as part of the Mercury retrograde pattern. Rationality is merely one point of view among many, but it's one that will come in handy over the next few weeks. There was a time in aviation history prior to the pre-flight checklist. That one concept has saved incalculable lives, and now is the time to break out those kinds of methods and use them consistently.
In addition to the mental fog and the memory lapses of Mercury retrograde square Neptune, the involvement of Mars in the aspect pattern suggests the need to be cautious of all self-destructive tendencies. Mars is in early Gemini now, heading for a square to Neptune. Mars square Neptune is another aspect that needs special care and handling. Mars in this pattern can bring out the self-undoing tendencies of Neptune and Pisces in a rapid and toxic way. This will be affecting everyone to some degree, and the presence of Mercury will make it difficult to tell what is what. The retrograde phase peaks the last week of May, when retrograde Mercury and Mars form a conjunction, exactly square Neptune. Said another way, Mercury square Neptune and Mars square Neptune will be happening at exactly the same time. Mercury will be retrograde, in Gemini -- there is no more succinct astrological way to say tricky. There are other factors involved, mostly clustered around the Mercury-Mars conjunction. These are asteroids involving sex and sexual identity -- Eros, Sappho and Tantalus among them. This looks like confusion and/or soul searching around sexuality, a theme that comes up over and over again in this chart. Here is what I suggest: First and foremost, be aware of the digital fog. Notice how many devices surround you. Note the trends and tides on the Internet. Be conscious what you share and with whom. Remember that once you send or post something, that is, in effect, irreversible. Here are a few more ideas: 1. Slow down. Drive slower, think slower, come to conclusions slower (or not at all). Your judgment may be impaired, and there are layers and layers of facts that need to come out. This will take time, such as weeks or months.
3. Wait before signing or buying. This is fairly typical Mercury retrograde advice, but it really holds true now. Any contract or agreement needs to be scrutinized carefully. The claims of any offer or warranty will be difficult to verify. If you can wait until after the station direct on June 11, then wait. If you cannot, proceed with caution and with the best astrological advice you can get. 4. Don't push issues. This astrology makes it tempting to push issues, such as the ones about how someone really feels; that is likely to be disastrous and lead to misunderstandings. Even if someone is telling you the truth you may not believe it. Mars in the mix comes with the impulse to assert your opinion at all costs, and that could add up to a lot. 5. Be careful with intoxicating substances. Yes, I must say this even to the pure-of-soul Planet Waves readership. Substances include anything that changes your consciousness, from Benadryl to methamphetamine, cannabis to crack, Merlot to martinis. Less is more. At social gatherings stay a few drinks behind the crowd or don't drink at all. Do the designated driver thing. 6. Read your outbox. Look for mistakes in emails that you've sent. The moment you find one, send a clarification or correction. I strongly suggest keeping potentially controversial, libelous or judgmental opinions out of writing, at least for a while.
8. If the phone gets weird, meet in person. Some conversations deserve face-to-face meetings. Be sensitive to that fact, and get together in person if necessary; you will save a lot of confusion. 9. Forget text messages. For the next four weeks they are a disaster waiting to happen. That's usually true but it's especially true now. 10. Remember the power of belief. Most people will choose to accept what they believe whatever the facts may state, no matter how smart they are. However, the facts matter, and belief has built-in distortions of which you need to be mindful now. 11. Slow down. Nearly anything important can wait a few weeks, and that will very likely save you time. If you must proceed with something, remember to get several pairs of eyes onto any agreements or contracts. Then calculate how much you're willing to lose if things don't go according to plan, and make sure that's realistic.
The horoscopes below are based on my work doing the Mercury retrograde reading this past week. This is a 12-sign reading for all the signs and rising signs, plus an introduction on how to handle Mercury retrograde. I will also be adding a bonus track on what I call The Writing Crisis. Below each horoscope is a five-minute preview of the Mercury retrograde reading for each sign. The readings are each about 25 minutes long. Gemini's reading is longer because that's where the retrograde takes place, and I suggest that everyone listen to that. The Mercury retrograde reading has already been sent to All-Access Pass holders and those who pre-ordered. Everyone else may get it here. I will hold the pre-order price till Mercury stations retrograde overnight Monday to Tuesday. If you want more details about Mercury retrograde in general, I would refer you to my Expert's Guide to Mercury Retrograde. It includes such ideas as, "It may not be broke so don't fix it yet." True, that. With love,  PS -- You may listen to the introduction to the Mercury retrograde reading here. Below each sign are five minute samples of that sign's reading. Click and play! Then sign up! Planet Waves (ISSN 1933-9135) is published each Tuesday morning and Thursday afternoon in Kingston, New York by Planet Waves, Inc. Annual basic subscription rate: $97/year. Core community membership: $197/year. Editor and Publisher: Eric Francis Coppolino. Web Developer: Anatoly Ryzhenko. Office Manager: Lauren Gdovin. Astrology Editor: Amanda Painter. Astrology Fact Checker: Len Wallick. Copy Editor and Fact Checker: Jessica Keet. Client Services: Amy Elliott, Lisa Gatto. 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, Casey Smith, Carol van Strum, Len Wallick, Lizanne Webb and Chad Woodward. Charts for Train Crashes at Frankford Jct. Have Eerie Similarities  Side-by-side charts of the Amtrak 188 crash and the 1943 Pennsylvania Railroad crash, which took many lives and happened in the same place. They have many features in common. VIEW FULL-SIZE CHARTS.
Amtrak 188 crashed in the same place as another infamous, even more deadly train accident: the Frankford Junction crash of 1943. [View charts at full size.] The 1943 crash was caused by a mechanical malfunction -- a piece of overheated equipment that caused an axle to snap, which then derailed a long train carrying 541 passengers. Unlike many such incidents, the time was recorded and it's possible to cast an accurate chart. Right away you can see the exact Jupiter-to-Jupiter conjunction between the two charts. In other words, in both crashes, Jupiter was in the same exact degree of Leo. Both charts also have angular Sagittarius (the sign of travel) -- the MC in the 1943 chart and the ascendant in the Amtrak chart.
In the 1943 chart, Mars is about to make a conjunction to Uranus. This is why Mars-Uranus aspects are considered classic accident astrology, and any good astrologer would say be cool and slow down. You can read a description of the gruesome accident here. In the current Amtrak chart, Mars is opposite Saturn, another kind of aspect that indicates stress and pent up energy needing to be released. But the to-the-degree, timed-to-the-minute aspect involves the 7th house cusp of the Amtrak chart intersecting exactly with Mars in the 1943 chart. This highlights the role of Mars in both charts. In the current accident this manifested as excess speed. In the 1943 chart, Mars manifested as a fire breaking out in a piece of equipment, leading to a chain reaction of events. In the 1943 chart, notice that the Moon in Sagittarius is high above the chart (angular, on the 10th house cusp), about to oppose Mars-Uranus. In an event chart, the thing the Moon does next is one of the most important facts. In the Amtrak chart, the Moon also busy. It's in Pisces, describing the spaced-out nature of the consciousness involved. The Moon makes a different series of aspects -- first to Juno, then to Jupiter, then to Pluto. Still, the involvement of a powerfully aspected Mars in Gemini in these two crashes in the same place cannot be missed, and astrologers would do well to take note.   My 2014 name, although not my absolute favorite of the bunch, is still a lovely one -- and its graphic image on the TIME website was easier to blow up to our publication's page width. I'd wanted to feature my 1890s nomenclature doppelganger, Nora, with its suggestion of the female half of Dashiell Hammett's famously witty detective duo. That said, I'll be sticking with Amanda.
A Rose By Any Other Name…By Amanda Painter As Mercury prepares to station retrograde in the sign of the twins, you can find out what your parallel-era ‘twin' might have been named in 1890 -- or last year, or any decade in between. TIME magazine has published an interactive online name generator. It uses ranked lists of baby names for each decade to find the names equivalent to how popular your name was the year you were born. Lists come from the Social Security Administration; the most recent year's data is from 2014. Just type in your first name, year of birth and sex, and you'll get an array of name tags, each emblazoned with that decade's name for you. (Note that the name you were given likely did not hold its rank for the full decade in which you were born, just your year -- so your decade's result could surprise you!) In funky Gemini style (Mercury, its ruling planet, is rather androgynous), depending on your name, it might look like girls' names are showing up in the boys' listings; that's because over the years a number of names have "drifted from being associated with boys to being associated with girls." In this era of gender fluidity, Mercury should feel right at home.   Paul Hewson, a/k/a Sir Bono.
Cheating as a Way of Life, Mercury Rx and Bono's AstrologyTo begin this week's program I survey the culture of cheating that we live in, and take the question back to Chiron in Capricorn and the Enron scandal. I also look at the upcoming Mercury retrograde, and the involvement of Mars in that pattern. And then I go over a grouping of aspects between Tuesday and Friday that include Mars opposite Saturn, Vesta conjunct Chiron and Psyche conjunct 1992 QB1. In the third segment I do the chart of Bono and talk about how it is that he became involved with Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, reading from an interview with Brian and Danny who tell the story in their own words.  Your Monthly Horoscopes -- and our Publishing Schedule Notes Your extended monthly horoscopes for May were published Thursday, April 23. We published your extended monthly horoscopes for April on Thursday, March 26. We published your Moonshine horoscopes for the Scorpio Full Moon Tuesday, April 28. Please note, we normally publish the extended monthly horoscope on the first Friday after the Sun has entered a new sign.  Weekly Horoscope for Thursday, May 14, 2015 #1049 | By Eric Francis  Your Taurus Birthday Reading Has Just Published! Dear Taurus (and those who love them): We've just published the Taurus birthday reading. Whether you have your Sun, rising sign, Moon, or a favorite person in this sign, there's an excellent reason for you to listen to it -- and take notes. In fact, you're invited to listen to all of Part One of the reading to get a taste of what is in store for you.  Well, Eric has a lot to say here about handling money, and values toward money (that is the Mercury retrograde piece). He also looks at your relationship to your creative process, and how you can make contact with the underlying emotion that drives you do the excellent work that you do. There is a lot -- a lot -- about collaboration in your charts this year. There is the story of a relationship that is, or that becomes, a productive collaboration. You might think of this reading as an extended meditation on your life, designed to help you identify themes, spot issues and think of your circumstances in a creative way. Eric brings emotional intelligence to this work; an empathic viewpoint you can trust to help you steer in the best possible direction for you, even when things get tricky or confusing. You can get instant access to the Taurus reading here for just $29.97 (we'll be increasing the price very soon) -- and as always, it's easy to give as a gift. Yours & truly,             To unsubscribe, click here e Wiki | Friends | Editors | Contact Us Copyright © 2015 by Planet Waves, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Other copyrights may apply. >> Some images used under Fair Use or Creative Commons attribution. |
