They come here alone and they leave in twos
Except for you and me who just came to use
If you're all done like you said you'd be
What are you doing hanging out with me?

-- Elliott Smith, "Whatever (Folksong in C)"

Dear Friend and Reader:

Kaila Ann Watson didn't have an ideal childhood. Nobody does, but she was born with her heart on the right side of her chest, and with only two chambers, when a normal human heart has four. Between three months and five years old, she underwent four open-heart surgeries at Boston Children's Hospital to have the condition repaired. Her parents, family and community did everything they could not only to take care of her but also to make sure that her life was as full as possible; that she lived like a child and not a medical specimen.

Kaila Watson, on the way to surviving four open-heart surgeries between the ages of three months and five years old. Image of family photos by Eric Francis.

Many people got involved; for a family to go through something like this takes plenty of community support. Because Kaila's mom, Tobi, works for Ulster Publishing, the company that publishes a number of local newspapers, Kaila was the subject of many articles and a focus of community attention well beyond the family's circle of friends. She was a famous little kid and seemed to endure her ordeal gracefully. I worked for those newspapers during the late part of the heart surgery phase, and the drama around Kaila was something widely embraced, like she was a little piece of everyone who knew about her.

Had she died then, it would have been a collective tragedy. When she died at age 20, it still was. And it was not her heart that gave out.

On the night of March 15, Kaila overdosed on heroin. Everyone close to her knew she was using, and she'd had several previous near-miss experiences. She was delivered unconscious by her also strung-out ex-boyfriend to the emergency room after up to 30 minutes of respiratory arrest. Doctors were able to resuscitate her, but there was no activity in her brain. She was placed on life support, but after several days, her brain began to swell. On Thursday, March 19, her parents made the decision to remove her from life support.

Her mom stayed with her, in the hospital bed, with her hand on her heart. Kaila's pulse got weaker and seemed to stop at 6:45 pm. Then as often happens in the death process, there was a surge of energy and her pulse returned, and then her heart stopped. It was 7 pm, a few moments before sunset, with the Sun in the last degree of Pisces, hours before equinox. Venus retrograde in Aries, taking its role as evening star (traditionally, the death star), was hovering above the horizon.

The next day, her childhood friend and longtime lover Simone contacted me about what had happened. Simone has been one of the models who has deeply influenced my studio photography. When she showed up for her first session in late November 2007, she had Kaila in tow, with a secret plan to get her into the photos. It worked. We made pictures till about 1 or 2 am, and after figuring out that neither of them had eaten any time recently, I made them breakfast in the middle of the night; and this was how I came to know Kaila Watson as a young adult, experiencing this pair of lifelong friends together.

Now, many people are asking: what happened? Her death has raised many questions: for parents wondering how they can prevent such an outcome in their own children; for her longtime friends, who wonder how she could have left them behind for her new group of associates; for others feeling her family's pain, or wondering what this means.

How Astrology Might Help

Astrology, if used consciously and carefully, can help understand and deal with the loss of a loved one. Since Kaila's life had a number of public overtones, and her existence seems to reach into a much wider sphere of reality than one person's life might ordinarily, she can serve as an example of what can happen here.

Kaila watching her friend Simone be photographed in my kitchen. Photo for Book of Blue by Eric Francis.

Using astrology, we can take some of these "life lessons" and use them to both help our understanding of the human condition, and to make us better astrologers. There are occasional times when we can see trouble coming and either point it out, or recommend ways to address the problem. It is not often that we can help, and it's not always advisable to try to help; but it's good to be prepared if the time arrives.

Kaila was born with the Sun in Cancer, the Moon in Libra and Taurus rising. [See her natal, progressed and death charts here.] These influences confirm a secure, loving home and real relationships, despite her medical needs. Indeed, the fact that she had survived her surgeries indicates that someone cared enough to help her pull through.

But there are three features that truly distinguish her chart, and provide a sense of the prolonged struggle and unbearable tension that characterized her life. And there are transits to go with them, which will help make the timing clear. Many factors in this chart that suggest she would have issues with addiction or toxins. They include the Moon in a tight square to Neptune; Mercury opposite Neptune; and Mars square Neptune. These are all addiction warning signs, and unfortunately there is not much that can be done about them except be aware when you see them in advance.

The Moon (ruler of the 3rd house, of siblings) also represents a childhood influence: the addicted half-brother who initially turned her on to heroin. I would also propose that there was a heck of a lot of anesthesia still in her body from all of the operations, all of which include many drug experiences (such as pain killers, when in recovery).

The involvement of the Moon and other personal planets (Mars, Mercury) with Neptune puts addictive tendencies at the deepest levels of conditioning and need. They are part of her personality on some inherent level. If there is pain to escape, it's going to either come through a spiritual path (not widely available), or through drugs and alcohol (which are widely available). Note, we are talking about an 8th house Neptune in Capricorn: not exactly optimistic, living on the edge, and giving the feeling of spirit trapped in matter rather than dancing in it.

Saturn, Uranus and the Galactic Core

Let's take a closer look at her 8th house, which is the house of growth, death, transformation and which also includes involvement with others. The 8th is the topmost of the four houses depicted in the diagram below; there are three planets in it. (I've written a lot about the 8th house and nearly all of it is searchable.)

The 5th through 8th houses of Kaila's natal chart. For the full chart and two others, please see this link.

One of the defining factors in her chart is that she has a very, very precise conjunction of Saturn and Uranus in the 8th house. This house is illustrated in the diagram to the left. The conjunction is in Sagittarius, aligned with the Galactic Core -- that is, the core of our Milky Way Galaxy, which is close to 27 degrees Sagittarius. The Galactic Core sums up the spiritual potential of Sagittarius, and reminds us that there is, at the center of our island in space, some central reality of which most of us are not aware. In the 8th you can get a lot of "life after death" imagery, as well as the feeling of an extraterrestrial source of life. The GC was not even discovered until 1933, when its radio sources were detected by a very smart guy named Jansky. The conjunction conditions and defines her response to this spiritual influence.

With Saturn, we have an archetype of what is traditional, orthodox, structured and restricted. Saturn in Sagittarius can present a significant block to spiritual awareness, because it can say that we think God (that is, our God concept) has limited powers. This is conjunct Uranus, which is spontaneous, forward thinking and willing to take chances. Uranus in Sag says God can do anything. So we have the image of profound inner tension or conflict, and it's in a "life or death" house. As a child, she was kept alive by science (Uranus) though she may have not appreciated that (Saturn).

From the videotapes I saw at her wake, as a child she was bursting with energy, focus and power. Yet beneath that expressive energy, there was a constant inner struggle. Children have a different relationship to existence and death than adults do. Kaila spent most of her early childhood on the brink of death, constantly under the scrutiny of powerful, world-renowned doctors and in the hands of many other medical professionals. Notably, much of this occurred when her brain was still forming before age two. Her trip along the edge anatomically shaped her view of existence. That view might have included the feeling that she didn't deserve to live. It took a lot to keep her alive, and if she doubted her right to exist, she may have felt anything from grief to resentment to self-hatred about the fact that she was given a chance. Just a short time ago, she would have died as an infant.

Then, as a young adult, came a once-per-lifetime transit event. Through 2007, Pluto went over that conjunction, making contacts in January, June and November. This transit would be a profound quest for anyone, calling for the highest degree of awareness and support. There is a need to deeply transform or release that tension suggested by Pluto making its repeated contacts. In any event it's going to be a near-death type of journey.

Tobi believes that by the end of that year, she was addicted to heroin, which provided both a point of release and an ongoing near-death experience -- that is, a flirtation with the ultimate release from physical existence. Notably, it also provided her with the comforts of childhood. I am reasonably certain from looking at this chart that her addiction to opiates had its roots in the medical environment, though this was, of course, an inevitable result of such intensive and painful medical treatment. If this is true, she associated pain medication with surviving rather than with dying.

Richard Tarnas, author of Cosmos and Psyche, described this combination of energies -- Saturn-Uranus-Pluto -- as "titanic pressure reaching the breaking-point," and reminded me that now the whole world has entered this same complex. Saturn and Uranus are now opposed for the first time since Kaila's birth, and we are gradually building to a T-square between Saturn, Uranus and Pluto. (It is not a coincidence that Kaila was born with the conjunction and died at the opposition; her life spanned exactly half of the 40-year Saturn-Uranus cycle.)

Natal Yod: Saturn/Uranus, the Sun and the Ascendant

The conjunction I just described makes a precise aspect structure with the Sun at 27+ Cancer, and the ascendant, at 27+ Taurus. Here we have a collection of very large, potentially overwhelming cosmic forces (Saturn, Uranus, Galactic Core) acting on extremely personal influences (ascendant, Sun). This, by the way, is one definition of an "intense person."

Kaila Watson and her mom Tobi. Picture of family photos by Eric Francis.

This shape is called a yod pattern; there are several kinds of yods (all of them planets grouped in the shape of an isosceles triangle). The type of yod in this chart is the one the most frequently talked about (a finger of god, or planets in a sextile and two quincunxes). It's like an arrow pointing to the Saturn/Uranus conjunction, involving everything with a 27 next to it.

Yods are strange energy formations because they bind together many different energies with properties said to be incompatible. You don't really resolve them; you adapt and live with them, and in that process of adaptation, they can become very strong influences; so strong that some astrologers associate them with fate. The Sun quincunx (150 degrees away from) Saturn creates stress on both points. Sun quincunx Uranus is extremely restless. Jupiter is close to the ascendant, and this is connected to all of the other planets as well; it just feels like a lot of bound-up energy wanting to let itself go.

When one part of the yod takes a transit, the whole structure takes that transit, so all during those heroin years, she was responding to the intense pressure to grow and change that is suggested by Pluto acting on so many major points. In the space of one year, Pluto repeatedly aspected Saturn, Uranus, Jupiter, the Sun and the ascendant -- all at once.

There are other ways to deal with this kind of event than heavy narcotics, but those depend on your values about life and death, and many other factors. If you grew up constantly living at death's door, you might be comfortable there and no place else. And the conjunction of Saturn and Uranus in her 8th makes me wonder if she didn't resent the burden of having to live in a very challenging world. By the time she had to be an adult, it was obviously extremely difficult for her to cope with the responsibilities and necessities involved.

Mars, Ceres and Chiron -- and the Aries Point

There is one last aspect structure to look at in this short overview of Kaila's chart, and it begins with Mars conjunct Ceres on the Aries Point. The Aries Point is the first degree of the zodiac; it includes the first few degrees and several other points that aspect them. Here, we're talking about the actual thing itself. You can see the aspect up in the top left side of the chart: Mars is the "male" symbol and Ceres looks like a question mark.

Kaila with one of her many cats. Besides the herd of felines, she had every possible domesticated animal except maybe a llama.

My first impression hearing this story was that it involved Demeter and Persephone. These are the mother and daughter of Greek mythology who became separated when Persephone was abducted to the underworld by Hades. In astrology, we substitute Ceres for Demeter and her feelings about her daughter; and Hades for Pluto. Ceres, in one expression, represents the grief of mothers, and here we have Ceres conjunct Mars -- on the extraordinarily public, deeply personal Aries Point.

How personal, and how public? Consider one transit. Kaila died with the Sun in the last degree of Pisces. On Friday morning the Sun entered Aries. On Saturday it formed an exact conjunction to Kaila's natal Ceres, and on Sunday, the night of the wake, it was exactly conjunct Mars. The wake was a public event that surrounded this deeply private tragedy. In the two hours I was at the wake, I would say that about 200 people came through the room; here is an image of the personal intersecting with a public event, directly involving the Aries Point on several counts.

Chiron is part of this aspect structure. Mars and Chiron are in an exact square; Ceres and Chiron are in a very close square. Chiron, as a result, is also involved with the Aries Point and here we have another image of a family situation (Chiron in Cancer) that is also public in nature (the Aries Point).

But let's take a look at that Mars-Chiron square on its own. I have seen that women with this square struggle acutely with the expression of their sexual and creative power. It gets blocked, they get stuck and frustrated, and seem to have no clue what to do about it. This is a culture-wide struggle, but in many women it's not focused; that is, it does not have a name or an identity. With Mars-Chiron, the person is usually fully aware of the crisis. They know the subject matter. The square points to a profound inner battle to work both energies. That struggle may be so poignant that, like other things in the chart, the seeming necessity or "only option" is to escape from the struggle any way you can. It is also possible to take charge, which involves embracing and expressing the tension of the square fully, and build on it; or to live passively.

The Issue of Choice

There has been plenty of conversation among Kaila's friends, our local community and the Planet Waves community about whether Kaila's death was the result of her own choices. This is all in the context of everyone knowing that her half-brother is the one who got her involved in the specific addiction that killed her.

Friend at Kaila's grave the morning of March 23, 2009. Photo for Book of Blue by Eric Francis.

We live in a time when one of the pseudo-spiritual cudgels frequently used is on the subject of choice. It is obvious that we make decisions and that we have made many that contributed to how we got where we are. It's clear that the power of choice is what we have now, if we notice. Yet I would propose here that, on Earth, one can only choose from among the known options; and that if everyone is making choices and we are in relationship to one another, we are all subject to the influences of one another's decisions. This includes ones made by other people for themselves, and the ones made by others for us.

Did Kaila choose to have open-heart surgery at three months old? Legally and logically, she did not. We could only say she chose, speculatively, by proposing that she chose her parents and her body and her life course, but that is speculative and it also implies "fate" as much as any other possibility. When adults tell me they chose their parents without specific documentation to back it up (such as a past life or bardo memory of having made the decision; or a series of readings by practitioners unknown to one another), I am usually concerned that they are blaming themselves for what their parents did to them.

What leads me to believe that Kaila's death was the result of her choices is that she knew she had options. Unlike most people in her situation, she had a family that loved her and that would do anything for her, and she knew that fact from plenty of experience. Her parents were always available and while her mother did not approve of Kaila's heroin use, she did not judge her for it. The night Kaila overdosed, she had the choice to do a creative project with her mother, or meet the boyfriend coming back into town with some really good stuff from California. She made a decision.

Kaila also possessed a history that was unlikely to have been related to her family. She has three points aspecting her lunar nodes; I use the nodes to tell me about things that must be accounted for in other incarnations or levels of experience. She has Nessus close to her South Node, conjunct the Black Moon Lilith. This is a dark and troubled history that she is bringing in, and we're unlikely to ever know the details.

This conjunction is square Pholus, a centaur that is involved with drugs and alcohol, and with events that have consequences that go beyond what we were expecting. Pholus points not only to childhood influences but also the total results of the generational line, and though the influence is indirect, the results are not. Pholus in this chart describes how present-life factors could have intersected with past life influences. The aspects to the lunar nodes suggest a pre-existing environment into which she was born; that is, some dark karma to work through or not work through, one way or the other.

We who have survived Kaila have the choice to make about how to consider her life and what it meant to us. We all know there is a lot more here than one little girl's story. And in true Aries Point-style, there are very few people who cannot relate to her somehow.

Yours & truly,

with David Arner and Chad Townsend

Note to Readers: I've been covering Kaila Watson's life and death in the Book of Blue diary. It's covered in there pieces: It's Not Hard to Die; The Faces of Kaila Watson; and How These Things Happen. There are also many posts with comments at the Planet Waves diary, particularly this entry.



By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

Hurry up and wait. That's where we are, these days; living life in a mad dash but too often bumping our nose against unaccustomed barriers of doubt. Hurrying to make an extra buck but waiting to decide what to do with it, if anything other than stash it under the bed; running to fill the tank in the car while gas is cheap but waiting to see what a new car might eventually cost. We're rushing to circle the wagons, button everything up and protect what we've got.

We're tapping our toe for Obama's stimulus package to leech out into our various states and make a difference, waiting to see if the economy is stabilizing or if there are more surprises lurking behind the doors on Wall Street, gathered to spring on us. We might be on the lookout for a new relationship or job -- but we're holding back on decisions because we're not sure what comes next. We're experiencing life in fits and starts lately, impatient for everything to get back to normal.

Well, here's the good and bad news: we're living in the new normal. Between the busy-bee impulse to hurry up and get somewhere, and the necessity to hang back -- this new, cautionary concern to see how things evolve, get our ducks in a row and discover our direction -- is our life. And even if we're exhausted worrying about what's going to happen next, on the off chance things get too slow, we rush to fill ourselves up with more more more; we're kind of like bulimics, binging and purging and unable to stop the cycle.

For several decades now, life has had a frenetic overindulgent quality that is clearly evident in our entertainment venues, complete with subliminal messages we've missed; we like extreme sports, for instance, and adore confrontive and embarrassing reality shows -- but we can't move ourselves to confront the last administration for its culpabilities. We're hooked on CSI-type television offerings that show us the darker side of death through the clean, specialized filter of forensics -- but we don't want to discuss the details of war in Iraq or rape in Darfur.

Coming Up in Daily Astrology and Adventure

It's an intriguing sight: Three photos, played in sequence, showing what looks very much like water beading up on one leg of the Mars Phoenix Lander, which arrived on Mars last May 25 after a nine-month trip through space. Of the many Mars probe missions in recent history, this was the first to successfully land in a polar region.

Droplets on a leg of the Mars Phoenix lander are seen to darken and coalesce. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Max Planck Institute.

That little clip on MarsDaily.com has Mars-watchers all a-twitter over whether it is just that: water (as opposed to just ice) on the Red Planet. And the response of the scientific community: Sure looks like it.

At least, that's the judgment of one of the co-investigators of the Phoenix mission, as reported at the San Francisco Sentinel. Nilton Reno, a professor in that school's Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences, says it's most likely salt water. And it may mean Mars isn't as dry as conventional wisdom has said it is.

"A large number of independent physical and thermodynamical evidence shows that saline water may actually be common on Mars," Reno told the Sentinel. "Liquid water is an essential ingredient for life. This discovery has important implications to many areas of planetary exploration, including the habitability of Mars."

According to the report on MarsDaily.com, "The lander was guided down by rockets whose exhaust melted the top layer of ice below a thin sheet of soil."

MarsDaily.com said that Reno's research was presented March 23 at a conference in Houston, and that a paper written by Reno and many Phoenix mission colleagues is under review for possible publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research.




It's not your father's trademark lawsuit: The Miami Herald reports that Latin astrologer Walter Mercado may have lost the rights to his own name, in perpetuity, to a promoter in Miami. Go figure.

The contract that is under dispute dates to 1995. In 2006 Mercado, 77, terminated the agreement, and Bakula sued him for breach of contract. It's been in court ever since. And a federal jury recently ruled in favor of promoter Bill Bakula.

Herald reporter Lydia Martin says of the astrologer: "Mercado is one of the Latin world's most beloved stars, mainly because he always gushes positivity. Yes, you can, his horoscopes affirm. And then he'll offer Leo a recipe for a love potion and Aquarius some numbers to play in the lottery. He remembers to stay upbeat, even when things are thorny."

Flamboyant and known for wearing makeup and rolling his Rs, Mercado countersued Bakula for $5 million he says he's still owed, but the jury found for Bakula. No damages were awarded, but at issue is whether the astrologer, or the promoter, can now use the Mercado name to make money.

"He wants to own me through all of my incarnations and across all of the stars," Mercado told the Herald.

Liberace, reached for comment in heaven, said he would not be suing Mercado for using his name as a moniker.




India may not have yet felt the full impact of the global economic downturn, but many people in the world's second most populous nation are worried about the signs they're seeing. And they're consulting astrologers, palm-readers, and other clairvoyants in record numbers -- which is good financial news to that ancient industry.

According to Bernama.com, the web portal of Malaysia's national news agency, worries about job security, children's marriages, and the future in general are driving huge numbers of people, mostly in their middle years, to seek news of the future.

Bernama.com spoke to several people in the industry and found similar stories of burgeoning clientele and increased revenues.

"People are worried about their future and parents are worried over their children's marriages during these hard times," said S. Govindaraja, president of the 300-member Astrologers Association of Chennai, in the article.

And M.K. Pandey, who manages astroguru-india.com, was described as "jubilant" as he noted, "Our business has grown by 10-15 percent since the worldwide recession started last year. Our consultants are busy 24 hours."

Home to some of the globe's oldest cultures, India has an ancient astrological system, which Bernama.com noted is "based on astrological dynamics like the movement of the planets is deeply rooted."




It has an atmosphere. It has liquid lakes on its surface. It has water ice.

Titan seen from the Cassini–Huygens spacecraft.

Sound homey? Well, Saturn's moon Titan, second-biggest planetary satellite in the solar system, isn't exactly habitable, what with gravity of 0.14g and nitrogen, methane and ethane making its air less than breathable. But, as UPI.com reports, new images and videos from NASA's Cassini-Huygens probe confirm that the "planet-like moon" has some distinctly Earth-like features.

It is also believed to be an early prototype of an Earth-like planet. Titan has been an important focus of the Cassini mission, including the Huygens Probe, which in 2005 was dropped to the surface of Titan in order to analyze the atmosphere, and made it to the surface.

"These flyovers let you take in the bird's-eye sweeping views of Titan, the next best thing to being there," Randy Kirk of the Astrology Science Center of the U.S. Geological Survey, and a member of the Cassini radar team, is quoted in the UPI article. "We've mapped many kinds of features and some of them remind me of Earth. Big seas, small lakes, rivers, dry river channels, mountains and sand dunes with hills poking out of them, lava flows."

According to the Wikipedia entry on Titan: "The atmosphere of Titan is largely composed of nitrogen and its climate includes methane and ethane clouds. The climate -- including wind and rain -- creates surface features that are similar to those on Earth, such as sand dunes and shorelines, and, like Earth, is dominated by seasonal weather patterns."

To look at images from the Cassini mission, as well as information about the program, visit the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Saturn site. Space news website SolarViews.com also has an entire section devoted to Titan photos.

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, March 27, 2009, #759 - By ERIC FRANCIS

Aries (March 20-April 19)
You may be in a profound moment of your self-esteem falling through the floor. Everything is supposed to be fine. In fact, everything may look fine. But there is a question lurking behind what feels like the backdrop that is your life. I suggest you ponder what that question is. I can offer a sketch, but it won't be the real thing, only a few lines and brush strokes. The issue has to do with the solid ground you're standing on, or rather, whether you are standing on any solid ground at all. It's not that you don't know what's important to you; but it looks more like you're wondering whether anything is important to you. I would go so far as to say you're questioning whether you have a value in the world. The good thing about asking that question rather than avoiding it is that you will get an answer.

Read your 2008 annual for Aries. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Aries and Aries rising here.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
Your charts tell me this is an odd time in your life, a time when any concept of who you are is sitting in a vacuum packed jar. It's in there, but you cannot get it. At night, you may think you can detect its scent coming through the glass. If you allow your dream body to get up and look inside that bottle, you will be able to see a story unfolding. You're looking for something from your past. Something, or is it yourself? Yes, you're looking for a long-ago left-behind idea of who you are, and who you wanted to be by this time in your life. You may think your secret is safer inside that jar, but in truth it needs to be exposed to light, water, earth and air in order to grow.

Read your 2008 annual for Taurus. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Taurus and Taurus rising here.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
You need to stand up to your friends, whatever they may think, and no matter how high their opinion is of themselves. I also suggest you beware of anyone making indirect statements or attempting to move sideways through their version of the truth. You may not be able to initiate a straight-up conversation, and listening to what they say may reveal as much about your inner reality as it does about theirs. I am just suggesting that you be in contact with your environment, and recognize that there appear to be a diversity of agendas at work. In this atmosphere it is crucial that you be in touch with your own agenda: your motives, your needs, your desires and how you plan to get them fulfilled, because clearly, you do.

Read your 2008 annual for Gemini. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Gemini and Gemini rising here.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
You need to proceed, despite some factor that's telling you it might be difficult, or that you might fail in your effort. There is so much momentum carrying you forward that you can take advantage of that, but making sure that you apply enough awareness to know that you have this doubt or question in the background. I suggest you use it as a factor that helps you to gather strength, determination and most of all, awareness of your goals as an expression of who you are, at your roots. There is one other thing -- remembering old, crucial and perhaps abandoned goals; at the same time you put them into the context of your current existence. Remember that everything has meaning, but only in context, and for you this is especially true right now.

Read your 2008 annual for Cancer. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Cancer and Cancer rising here.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
Question your ethics, and then answer the question. If you drag out this discussion you're missing the point. The idea is to get to the point. One thing to bear in mind is that just because you are right does not mean that someone else is wrong. I could see you potentially holding back on affirming your perceptions because they might somehow invalidate the perceptions of others. I will say this, not everyone understands ethics. And the problem with people who don't understand ethics is that they either lack the concept entirely, having replaced it with something more important (such as "success") or they define it in a way that you would consider twisted. And if you see it as such, than it most likely is. And, notably, that does not make you wrong.

Read your 2008 annual for Leo. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Leo and Leo rising here.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
Does someone want something from you, do they want to give something to you, or do they want an exchange? Look at the facts; or rather, both sets of facts. When you add them up independently, do they come out to the same thing? Here is a harder question: to what extent are you using the transaction to validate yourself? I think this is the deeper issue. It would be helpful if you sized up the situation from the standpoint of needing validation in the context of a relationship. On one level it may seem about sexual validation, but to me it looks like you are seeking evidence for the existence of your soul. You can do this with the help of another person, but it's easier outside that context.

Read your 2008 annual for Virgo. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Virgo and Virgo rising here.

Libra (Sep. 22 - Oct. 23)
You are about to make a discovery in a relationship, and it's likely to change the way you see things. The discovery may involve your own intention, and it may involve someone else's intention. Here is the danger. It's usually dangerous to try to make sense of another person's intentions because it always involves a projection. Also, there is a continuing discovery process in motion, and no matter how vivid your perceptions may seem today, there is something in motion, indeed, the very experience of meaning itself is in motion. Therefore it would be better to suspend your judgment about what anyone thinks or knows and allow the miracle of perspective to show you that from several other viewpoints over the next month or so. Beware of false simplicity.

Read your 2008 annual for Libra. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Libra and Libra rising here.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
Meaning is only meaningful in context. Change the context, and the meaning changes. Therefore I suggest you look at the context of what is occurring. The actions of someone you love might be construed as self-centered and vain in one context, and as healing, investigatory and honest in another. If you are tending to view them as a negative phenomenon, then shift the context and look at them within that framework. The discovery you make over the next few days has the potential to speed you on your healing process; it has the ability to open your eyes about what another person is experiencing; and the two can be seen as part of the same thing. For your part, there comes a time when you have to focus on yourself in a way that you may have been told is wrong, and this may be the thing you're questioning.

Read your 2008 annual for Scorpio. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Scorpio and Scorpio rising here.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22)
I believe that the reason most people avoid actual creative process and sex for exploration is because they feel guilty about being self-centered. This is a ruse, concealing the extent to which our culture is based on narcissism as a fundamental religious principle. We live, breathe and lie another mixed message, which is that sex is evil or untrustworthy, but in order to be valid, something must be sexualized. This split carries through to many aspects of our lives now, and it's up for discussion in your life. You more than most know that sex is how each of us is called into existence, so any struggle or mixed message with sex is really a mixed message about the fact that we live and breathe. That's about being a self, and if you start from there, it's actually possible to relate to others.

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Sagittarius and Sagittarius rising here.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
If you felt like some of the attention had been taken off of you recently, I suspect you're either back in the spotlight, or are about to be. You may, however, be wondering whether you're getting attention for the 'wrong' reasons, or there is someone in your life telling you this. I don't think their opinion matters as much as you think, and I think that as long as you're questioning your motives long enough to get an answer, your own opinion matters more. Remember, what you're doing is not about you, it's about the values you hold; and those values go beyond you. They are something you share with many people. You are coming through a long stretch of not being sure about what you espouse, and not being sure there is a larger connection. As the days and weeks of this season go by, your doubt will clear like mist.

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Capricorn and Capricorn rising here.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
You seem to be alternating between identifying with being all right and all wrong. Think of it like waking up from a morning dream. The logic of the dream seems impeccable, even though it sounds ridiculous to state it out loud. The other identity you were seems completely convincing, but it exists only in the context of an alternate reality. What I see you doing is trying to integrate two different sets of concerns, or to align two seemingly conflicting identities. I can tell you this. One of them is based on an exaggeration: it could be of childhood conditions, or a personal flaw; and it would make sense to put that in context. The second is based on denying something about yourself, and you're just beginning to get an idea of what you were pretending did not exist. Clearly, it does.

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Aquarius and Aquarius rising here.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
There is a recession, and there is a global crisis of self-esteem. The economy is depressed, and hundreds of millions of Westerners are walking around on anti-depressants. There is a connection between our self-worth and our economic worth; between how we feel about ourselves and how we feel about life. You can magnify this phenomenon to any degree you like; you can shrink it down and put it on a microscope slide. You can see, feel and work with this connection now. You have your doubts, and you need to listen to those doubts, rather than letting them stop you. Your doubts contain information, and if you will, acknowledge it, and work with it. The key to feeling good about who you are isn't about having no doubts, it's about how you process them. Prosperity takes a similar course: you must know your flaws, trust your talents and work consciously with both.

Read your 2008 annual for Pisces. Order your Next World Stories 2009 annual for
Pisces and Pisces rising here.