Dear Eric
I have a question, which I know has nothing to do with astrology, but it has been keeping me up night after night, and my boyfriend is starting to wonder so much he called my mother. I only ask you because you seem to know so much about so many things.

What came first, the chicken, or the egg?

Yours truly,
Late Nights Pondering, in Leeds
(Birth Data: 9.6.69, 12:00)

Dear Pondering
Like many devotees of astrology, you seem to be contemplating whether you exist, which I think is a job more appropriate for skydiving. However, you have posed an original and compelling question, and since nothing is beyond the scope of astrology, I would like to take a moment this week and address the issue.

I admit it would be easier if we had the birth chart for the first chicken, which might give us a clue, though my friend Sidney in the Royal Biology Lab tells me that happened some time about 785,000 years ago, and it would be hard to get an accurate chart. However, we would then be faced with a question -- which chart would we use? The chart for the time the first egg was laid, or the time it hatched?

When is the birth time of a chicken? These are the kinds of things you have to worry about when you become an astrologer. So children, beware, before you let your parents or guidance counselor lure you into this dodgy career.

And it would also be a heck of a lot easier if we had your accurate birth data as well, since your chart might tell me something, but I don't know if you were born on June 9 or Sept. 6, nor do I know if you were born at noon or midnight, and you haven't mentioned the place, which could be anywhere. But I will address your question, which I am sure everyone has wondered at some point in their lives, using the most accurate and ancient form of astrology: horary.

Generally, horary cannot answer these chicken and egg type questions, but I have rolled up my sleeves, I'm on my sixth cappuccino, I've got a newly charged battery in my Macintosh, and I've summoned the spirits of Ptolemy, William Lilly, Patric Walker, Evangeline Adams, Aleister Crowley and Dear Abby.

They are all standing around my table at this cute little cafe in downtown Calcutta, laughing hysterically.

And now for our chart.

The Aries Point is the first degree of Aries. It was discovered by the 14th century Scottish astrologer and writer of smutty novels that I can't quote in this column because people in Middle England are reading, but I can mention his name: the brilliant Ludwig Amadeus Aries, who in turn was a great inspiration for Galileo and Erica Jong.

What exactly does the Aries Point mean? Well, besides meaning everything, it's fair to say that it's about the beginning of something, in this case, obviously, the whole cycle of chickens and eggs.

Mars is the ruler of Aries and it is in the sign Aries, on the North Node, offering us yet another cosmic metaphor for beginnings. So we have a chart that fits the story -- the issue is clearly the beginning. We are on the right track. So far so good. Everything is beautiful.

When reading horary, it's always good to look at the Sun and the Moon. Notice that the Sun is in the sign Cancer. The Moon is in the sign Leo. This is a peculiar situation, because the Sun is in the Moon's sign (Cancer) and the Moon is in the Sun's sign (Leo). So Leo refers back to Cancer and Cancer refers back to Leo; and further, the Sun refers back to the Moon. And vice versa. In fact, you can throw in a few more vice versas as well.

This rare condition is only true for about two days a year -- and one of them happens to be today. How weird is that? Isn't astrology amazing? I mean, this sodding stuff works!

Also, the Moon, Mars and Pluto are in a grand trine. We've talked about these before, and if you recall, it was a long conversation. Once you get into a grand trine, it's a while before you get out. They just go around and around. Also, the Sun, Uranus and the asteroid Ceres are in a grand trine. Both the Sun and the Moon are in a grand trine and they are in one another's signs. So no matter how you look at this chart, it says the same thing: it just goes around and around.

Perhaps we need some guidance from some of the more subtle and spiritual planets, as this is a rather metaphysical question. Uranus and Neptune are good for that. Yet we find Uranus in the sign Pisces, and Neptune in the sign Aquarius -- they are in one another's signs!

Are we starting to see a pattern in this chart? I can see why you've been staying up so many nights.

Ah, I know what to do -- I'll call Jonathan Cainer's cell phone. He'll know how to get out of this. Hold on, it's still pretty early in London.

Okay, I talked to him, and true to form he said something philosophical -- the question matters less if you're vegetarian and doesn't matter at all if you're vegan!

Common Reader Question

Dear Eric
Tell me about me.

Yours truly,
Amanda in Arkansas

Dear Amanda
You're from Arkansas? What a coincidence. I know your cousin Mike! Please tell him I said hi.

Now Amanda, I really wish you had sent your birth data with this question, but since you asked me to tell you about you, you were born May 14, 1975 in Little Rock, at 5:31 pm. Am I good, or what?

From your chart, I can see that you work at Kentucky Fried Chicken and have a part time job at the Little Bark Veterinary Clinic. You drive a blue 1994 Honda, which burns a little oil, however, it's from the valve guides and seals, which are not usually worth fixing. However, the contradiction between working in a chicken fast food place and for a vet is not something that has escaped your awareness, and part of what you have come into this lifetime for is to embrace this very contradiction.

But what you really want to be is a mountain guide in the High Sierras. I'll come back to that later.

You live in an apartment on Clinton St., I won't give the address for privacy. You're on the third floor and I can tell your neighbor is really weird. He is constantly playing Led Zeppelin backwards at odd hours of the morning, which is annoying because a) this kind of thing was seriously passé about 10 years before you were born and b) you have to work the morning shift at Little Bark which usually means getting up at 6 am.

You know your neighbor from sixteen past lives, beginning in 455 BC and the most recent being in 1956. They all have one thing in common -- he is noisy and you are quiet. I know you feel that maybe you've done something terrible to him in a past life to deserve this, but, no, I assure you: he is simply noisy and he always has been.

So don't worry about your bad karma holding you back. Any that you had, you worked out in the third grade, when you refused to tell on those snitty girls for hassling you the day before Easter vacation. Remember that? You could have made their lives hell and in particular, you may have saved Nancy a lot of trouble because her father was a real piece of work and would have definitely over-reacted if the school principal called him up.

Now, as for your fabulous destiny as a mountaineering guide. In two years you will take a vacation in Nevada, and you will plan to go to Las Vegas because you've heard it's really weird. However, you will get bored in approximately 51 minutes and by accident wander down a side street where you will discover the office of Big Rock Adventures, which has not opened yet, and which will strike you as funny because you are from Little Rock and this is your chance to see the big rock.

All that's delaying this is this guy Wally who has this dream of starting Big Rock Adventures, but is still stuck in his job as an exterminator and hasn't had the guts to ask his rich aunt to swing some cash his way to help him get this pretty much guaranteed to be a successful business going.

You will run into Wally several times in these two years, purely by coincidence, but you won't know who he is and you probably won't recognize him when you see him that day in Las Vagas. But, this meeting that sunny afternoon will prove to be the one that sets you on the true road to your destiny.

Please let me know how things work out!

Dear Eric

Is there an asteroid named Betty Dodson?

-- Extremely relaxed in Wichita

Dear ERW
No, but there should be.

Dear Eric

Is there an asteroid named for Mick Jagger?

-- Freak

Dear Freak
Not that I know of, but these days you never know.

Dear Eric

Are there too many asteroids?

-- Still Counting

Dear Still Counting
Yes

Dear Eric

I lost my virginity at 3:07 on January 19th 2004 in a bus stop at Charing Cross, London. I know it was 3:07 because the number 14 bus came at the same time I did and it was seven minutes late.

Would it be possible to tell from a 'first time' chart what sort of a sex life I am going to have? I am a Virgo with Testosterone rising.

Yours very sincerely,
Dennis

Dear Dennis
You do have some Virgo tendencies, for sure. Also I've looked at the chart carefully and it does seem you also have a propensity for the Great Outdoors. However, I really think you need to get yourself to Wales for a week or so where there is a lot more fresh air, sunshine and better meadows to frolic in than in London.

Dear Eric

Do you consider yourself weird or normal?

Gerry the Gemini

Dear G-G
What a nice thing to say!

Well ladies and gentlemen, this concludes another exciting week of Astrology Secrets Revealed! Remember, your subscriptions to Planet Waves Weekly will help the world solve all its problems, from political corruption to global warming! So subscribe today!

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Planet Waves Weekly is the only place online to get the weekly horoscope of Eric Francis, both emailed and posted to the Web on a subscriber homepage each Friday. Eric is now writing Parallel Worlds, the 2006 annual edition of Planet Waves with the year-ahead forecasts, available to all subscribers. As a subscriber, you can keep up with Eric's essays on astrological developments, chart reading techniques, Tarot cards, and world affairs. Experience Eric's unique perspective as an astrologer-investigative reporter. Read more than three years of archives of essays and horoscopes. We invite you to look around and become one of many satisfied readers of Eric's daring and innovative astrology journal.