Cosmic Equinox, or the Anti-Sixties?

Note to Readers: This is a sample of the full edition that went out to subscribers this morning. You can have access to my full analysis and all 12 signs of interpretation by subscribing to Planet Waves Astrology News. More information about this product, our organization and the work that I do is in the links to the right side of this page. — efc

Dear Planet Waves Reader:

We’re about to experience a spring season like no other. It has an ordinary beginning, more or less. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, spring begins when the Sun’s rays square the equator, just past noon in the Eastern U.S. zone on Saturday, March 20. We’re currently in that brief phase where night and day are equal around the world. In the midst of this, the Sun enters the sign Aries and the new astronomical year begins. There are a few extra planets in Aries — at the moment, Venus and Mercury, and of course, ultra-longtime tenant Eris.

Late winter light near New Paltz, in Ulster Country, NY. Photo by Eric Francis.
Late winter light near New Paltz, in Ulster Country, NY. Photo by Eric Francis.

Aries is a cardinal sign, which means if all goes well enough, it arrives with strength, determination and initiative. Think of all the energy rising out of the ground: seeds bursting into bloom, trees creating tens of thousands of new leaves to harvest the newly-available rays of the Sun, animals birthing and even people taking a moment to feel alive.

Part of our spring cleaning/revival is that Mars stationed direct on March 10. Mars is the ruler of Aries and the energy of the sky is now focused here. Despite a brief Mercury retrograde coming in a few weeks, and the fact that we will need to use some of that Mars direct energy cleaning up the mess made by Mars retrograde events, we are on solid ground. The thing to watch for is oppositions: you will have to do your part to sidestep needless contention and controversy. Keep your encounters real; choose well.

I say this recognizing how challenging life is for how many people right now, even the ones with homes and jobs and health insurance. The relentless 2012 quality of “everything, all at once” is still influencing our lives, and will be for a while — particularly as the energy picks up over the next two months and everyone of every psychic shape and vibration responds their own special way to the conditioning forces that surround us.

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What's New at Planet Waves

As usual, there’s all kinds of exciting stuff happening on Planet Waves websites. We’ve completely revamped the Planet Waves homepage, making us the easiest website to navigate since Netflix. This weekend Daily Astrology & Adventure will morph into a news blog, covering the latest details in the health reform vote taking place Sunday. I have posted one of the more significant charts and I am sure a discussion will emerge at that link. Then there’s the conversation about the astrological houses as they describe sex and relationships which continues, up to nearly 90 comments as of this writing. Eric has followed up with an entry about why some people get bristled by his articles on the topic, collecting comments as we speak. Len Wallick has done some excellent articles this week on the equinox, including one called Intimatinos and Speculations. Eric will have a more technical summary of the equinox at the Cosmic Confidential Diary.

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Planet Waves
Weekly Horoscope for Friday, March 19, 2010, #808 – BY ERIC FRANCIS
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Cancer (June 21- July 22)
You have all the luck you need to succeed; you have the talent; now you need focus and efficiency. If you’re going to begin anything this week, limit that to two items, preferably related to one another. You are in the mood to get things going, yet you need to be careful and discerning about your motives, and the speed with which you attempt to accomplish anything. Be mindful of people around you who stir up conflict or strive to get attention. One way you can cut back on this phenomenon is by being clear with yourself about who you are, and why you do what you do. This will set a boundary; your clarity will, at least, help you see when others are not clear, or when their agenda does not match yours. What you do with that information is another issue, but the fact that you will indeed need to have it is clear.
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Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
Mark Twain joked about not letting one’s schoolin’ get in the way of one’s learnin’. I would say: don’t let your work get in the way of your professional aspirations; don’t let your professional aspirations get in the way of your ability to get things done. After considerable frustration and confusion, you can now get the two going in the same basic direction; at least tuned to the same key. You may have to do this in manual mode. I suggest you see where your smaller efforts add up to drive forward your larger objectives. See where your larger objectives can call on you to scale back what amounts to busy work — but not your dharma. That is, some things that feel like busy work are actually actual, authentic committed duties. Just because you don’t like doing something doesn’t mean that it’s not truly vital.
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Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
I know, you still can’t see around that corner — the one that seems to be behind you but is really in front of you; the one that seems to have defined a decade of your life, but which is really right in front of you. The way to work with this uneasy tension is to choose where you want to be. Get out of automatic mode and make your decisions with full awareness of what you are choosing, and what your options are. You have, at the moment, an overwhelming amount of potential, and this may not be making your life any easier. So you need to focus, and you need a basis for what you choose to focus on. You have three choices, approximately. One is what you perceive as necessity. One is what you perceive as crisis. The last is what you want, and that may be the most difficult to see — but it’s clearly the most important to look at.

23 thoughts on “Cosmic Equinox, or the Anti-Sixties?”

  1. “This fear of being singled out and persecuted by some larger, amorphous system is pretty widespread among most peers that I encounter.”

    Katy said this so well. I call myself a “closet activist” because I fear being out in the open and becoming a target. I fear because I keep remembering the kids of MLK and Malcom X and all the other assassinated front-men; they had to live without their beloved and very needed parent. Having a dead hero parent is just not the same as having a live quiet one; at least not to a kid anyway. All the accolades and public praise didn’t bring these kids their dads back. It is that which keeps me behind the closet door, using the internet instead of openly going out there and being up front; I have four children who need me and being a vocal front-person might rob them of that. This is what the past has taught us. Whether this lesson was the intention of the assassins or not, it has been inculcated deeply in the American subconscious.

    I remember Eric once commenting on how the French people are not afraid to get out into the streets and gather to protest against things they don’t like and how they seem less afraid of the police than Americans are of our police. The pictures he showed are still in my mind and all I could think of when I first saw them was “have the French ever lived through so many assassinations of front-men or killings to shut up a group of people (think Kent State) like Americans have?” It is about conditioning; Americans are conditioned for fear.

    Just watch TV on any given day and the programs are all doom and gloom. Conspiracy theories abound: meteors are going to kill us all, the super volcano will blow up and we will all die, this group was invaded by the local government because they had guns or didn’t pay their taxes or they are suspected of some sort of illegal activity, Cheney had detention centers built….I could go on and on. It is so pervasive that we don’t even acknowledge it anymore. On the other side are programs that extol the virtues of competition and eliminating real human beings by what resembles mob rule at times.

    The fear of being marginalized, ostracized, mistreated, incarcerated, harmed is almost palpable in the US and we have the largest population of incarcerated people per population. The Chinese with over a billion people have less people per the population in jail. We are the one first world country that still has the death penalty. All these things are scare tactics. Combine these with the huge economic disparity that keeps so many working so long and hard just to survive and people have no time or energy to stand up and speak out.

    I know I generalize here but I am trying to see a bit of the big picture.

  2. Katy,

    Thanks for posting; I am so glad you have joined this conversation! You give me hope because of your youth and idealism. My teen daughters express some of the same things you do; one wants to become a film maker/director to make films that will inspire people to change for the better and the other wants to become a teacher to inspire kids one classroom at a time to do the same. Thank you for writing and joining this community;, I value your contrbution and hope you continue!

  3. I have been hearing a common thread and refrain running in the conversations here and with my friend, Rachell and others. That common refrain goes something like this: Why can’t we that want change, that want progress, that want community do the open work to make those things happen? For example, why is it so hard to build that community in real life that paola spoke of? Why is it that we can build such strong internet communities but not real-life ones?

    I think it goes back to another lesson many have internalized about groups that DO try to get away from the way things are and build a community they want for themselves. While many of these were fringe groups that had religious overtones (or were even obviously religious) the idea for each of the groups was to create the community they wanted and to do so in ways that allowed them the free expression of their beliefs. If we look at how such groups are treated by the governments in which they live and the sociaties in which they occupy it becomes very apparent why people are afraid to group together; these groups almost always get busted up by government entities on some excuse or another. Most of the excuses are valid but that the government can just decide to invade, sometimes violently, a group that is trying to form a community is frightening to anyone wishing to do the same. The only exceptions seem to be the Amish and other groups like them and it would be because for some reason, the Amish and those other groups do not threaten the government or society somehow.

    Another reason for groups not forming comes from policies that were enacted way back after WWII. The factories that cranked out so many products needed a mobile workforce so things were done to make people have to move to where the work is; many people that would band together to form communities are scattered about because of their jobs. My friend, Rachell and I live on opposite ends of this country now; she’s in Florida and I’m in Arizona. She and I want to get together in a place closer together to create community but the job prospects we each are dealing with are preventing that.

    For about ten years, I was part of an online community of mostly women posters that came from just about every religion you could imagine. We debated hotly such issues as abortion and same sex marriage and the existence of Jesus or other “prophets” and many other usually divisive issues. Yet these people beame a community to such a dagree that most of us rallied around one another whenever there was a surgery, illness, job loss or other crisis. Some even got together in real life (those that could) and formed lasting friendships. I still have many of these people as friends on my Facebook. Yet this group of fantastic people live all over the US and as such, could never form a real life community.

    I don’t know how to surmount the issues of distance and employment or how to answer the question of how people can feel safe to gather more and speak out. more.

  4. Hello everybody in all emispheres,
    this discussion going on here is so interesting. I’m writing from a little remote country (if you look from the US) called Italy. I’ll mix some of the subjects going on in the different discussions.
    Heathcare here is pretty good. Of course it could be much much better, but compared to… nothing it’s pretty good and trustable.
    Referring to Eric’s article on the Uranus-Jupiter conjunction in Aries, this makes me ponder and scares a little too. The political situation here is at a very very very risky edge. The dragon is not going to sleep without making a big mess, and this could be what the article makes me think of. But let’s maintain a positive perspective, if that will be the case, as stated by various contributions here, the ‘silent’ majority now is a democratic majority, who cares a lot about freedom and healthy institutions.

    I personally appreciate the look on America that PW gives, it allows me to keep informed and it offers a big window on the planet as a whole. Internet is a strange tool: it enables us to put into practice a once only dreamed vision: the global one (in a good sense), we can easily communicate with everybody and feel as a one planet. But where are the ‘real’ people? My friends are usually always busy with family or work or whatever, and me too. We are very open and very private at the same time. How do we get ‘global’ in person, in real practice? Is it still necessary? This is a question addressed to anyone interested in the subject.
    Ciao from the sunny country,
    Paola

  5. Hi Eric and All,

    I saw this clip of John Stewart from the Daily Show doing a parody of Glenn Beck, and the entire time, all I could think about was this article.

    I wanted to share the clip with you all, for what it’s worth. Here is the link:

    http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-march-18-2010/conservative-libertarian

    Thank you for creating space for so many different ideas, discussions, and possibilities. As minimally as I’ve had the guts to get involved thus far, I sure do read and follow the large majority of discussions on Planet Waves.

    This article in particular really did get met thinking about WHY I don’t even have the guts to get involved somewhere that, as far as I can tell, is a safe space to have an open dialogue about even the things that might be controversial or offensive. Thank you for offering up some ideas about where that fear might be coming from, and why.

    I have repeatedly found that your work promotes awareness on all levels, personally and politically (if you will ;). There is definitely some darkness up ahead, on all of those levels, and, I agree with your wholeheartedly that at some point awareness isn’t going to cut it, and action must follow.

    I wanted to offer some perspective from my own life experience. I am in my early twenties and my peer group consists of many filmmakers, writers, radio dj’s, musicians, painters, massage therapist, naturopaths, acupuncturists, revolutionaries in hiding, etc. who can see and articulate to a certain extent how royally we are all being screwed, but seem unable to unite at a core level. What has been previously mentioned about the teachers and truth speakers of the sixties being killed definitely resonated with me as one possible source of fear that keeps us hiding ourselves away. Often times, when discussion arises regarding “making it” (which equals being seen) there seems to be a general consensus that if somehow someone controversial managed to slip through the corporate cracks and gain some public exposure that promoted awareness of how we are being manipulated and guided in our every move, they would most undoubtedly be removed, in one way or another. This fear of being singled out and persecuted by some larger, amorphous system is pretty widespread among most peers that I encounter. Combine this with a general public that is so passive and unable to react, get angry or see how they are being manipulated, and the challenge to battle seems so great that the end seems to look like a sacrifice of self. Perhaps this is the case, but, that is for another discussion.

    I think that fear of being singled out is key. We are inculcated to notice differences. We are told that to fit in equals survival. And, those who won’t conform are dangerous and insane. You get the message in so many ways that if you don’t fit in then no one will ever love you and then fill in the blank with some horrible end of your choice. I don’t know. I often think about the words written by Kevin Barnes, “It seems like we weren’t made for this world, but, I wouldn’t really want to meet someone who was.” You know, we’re not all so different. All these labels and divisions are just another tool to steal our power, to divert our attention away from what truly needs focus and healing. Maybe we don’t have to keep separating ourselves, but the task of unification seems so giant, so impossible sometimes.

    I suppose that is the goal, to make the system of control one is rebelling against so huge that any little dissenters will just be swallowed up. It’s frustrating because I am an idealist at heart. I want to have hope, because I am so young, and, I see so much potential. There are so many realistic and valuable solutions and ideas floating around among my generation. However, this fear that creates the illusion of separateness and thus powerlessness has been inculcated on such a deep, almost unconscious level, that we seem to be finding ourselves repeatedly paralyzed before we take a first step.

    It’s so easy to hide behind idealism. To hide behind walls and computer screens. To hide behind systems and thoughts. I went outside last night and stared up at the sky just to remind myself that the planets aren’t something that I am just trying to figure out on paper and in my mind. They are above me, moving, shifting, just like everything else around me. I appreciate the work you do to keep your electronic space grounded in the earth. That is something I’ve always liked most about Planet Waves, all of the pictures reminding me you’re a human and so am I.

    Anyway, at some point, my generation is going to have to step into the world or we are going to be swallowed up. I appreciate the work you do here, constantly questioning what seems so established that it is not even thought about.

    I do believe there is still potential… and hopefully that Aries energy will embolden all of us, not just those that want to flood the world with more fear and division. I am setting the intention that, if nothing else, it will at least embolden me. Look, I’m even commenting! It’s a start, anyway.

    Whatever the answer is, let’s all just keep going, and try to remember that we all live here together. Different hemispheres, maybe. Same planet, definitely.

    With love,
    Katy

  6. What GG and Eric said about the assassinations scaring people off is something I have also come to believe. Anyone that is old enough to remember those assassinations (and even if you are raised a Christian; Jesus spoke out and they killed HIM too) knows that being a leader that speaks out gets you killed. That is a visceral lesson that runs so deep in the subconscious that when I began positing it back in 1998 to my online buddies they scoffed at me at first.

    Yet I also agree with GG that the energy now may be different. Throughout history, women have occupied a lot of behind-the-scenes when it comes to the greater movements. The saying “behind every Great Man there is a great woman” caps and not-caps there for emphasis, encapsulates that ideology well. Women have traditionally had to work behind things and from a sometimes hidden position; think of the female authors that wrote under male pen names or women that were activists behind their husbands.
    The internet has made it possible for people to do more activism in the way women have had to be active; anonymously.

    A good example of a movement flying under the radar but using technology to make things happen can be found in a National Geographic magazine article about Iran. The article told of Cyrus the Great and his tomb. People all over Iran used internet chat rooms, message boards, e-mail, and text messaging to get people to gather at Cyrus’s tomb on the date commemorating an important anniversary in Cyrus’ life. The tomb saw thousands of visitors converging there on that day seemingly by accident because no front-man had come out and said for people to go there to commemorate the day because had one done so, the tomb may have been blocked off. This tomb usually had few visitors but on that anniversary day, thousands showed up. This is how women would do a movement.

    The Shift movie talks about a global movement for enlightened change that has no leader yet it is happening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hL_VTdxvWac see minutes 2:08 to 2:23. This sounds exactly like the way women have traditionally had to get changes to happen; behind the scenes, not in front.

    Perhaps this is why the energy seems so different.

  7. Hey I totally agree with you about the assassinations in the Sixties. It’s good that you mentioned Lowenstein, and there was also Bobby Kennedy.

    You’re right this kind of violent energy suppresses speech, and that’s one reason we don’t any Dr. King’s among us at the moment (altho he in particular was probably one of a kind, not to be seen again).

    HOWEVER — we do have Cindy Sheehan, and Rachael Maddow, and Wangari Maathai of Kenya. In fact, we have a fair amount of female energy out there trying to counter the violent stuff, and while you may not like Hilary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi or Kirsten Gillibrand, their presence makes it harder for men to hunt down women and silence them in general.

    The presence of these “mainstream” women in high positions allows the more inspired voices of women like Maddow and Maathai to actually be heard.

    I say that the violent energy is primarily male because unfortunately, violence is taught to men, and that behavior is often reinforced institutionally, and this is not usually the case with women. Altho of course women can fall into the trap of senseless aggression as well.

    Maybe the counter-balancing energy looks different to you now because it’s coming from women, instead of men?

    You know those techniques of intimidation and ridicule and violence, of silencing the outspoken and trying to weaken them — that are being unleashed on progressives are actually all techniques used through the ages to silence women into compliance.

    And now — and by “now” I mean over the past century, in the long view — those techniques have been expanded and turned on a certain part of culture at large, the part that has learned to be tolerant of women, and to practice tolerance in general.

    So you know, welcome to my world. 😉 I mean, just being female means that I am going to get picked on for speaking up in many mainstream settings, it’s not the content of my speech that draws the fire but the fact that a woman is saying what I say.

    But just because they kill us, brother doesn’t mean they win, or that they are winning, in the broader flow of things.

    In fact, it may mean that they are getting closer to being unable to sustain themselves, and to collapsing under their own dead weight.

    Anyway, keep up the good work.

    GG

  8. Well I guess in a world the size of ours, there is room for differing opinions. Here’s an alternative one from Australia.

    I expect Planet Waves to give me a view on what is happening in the US. It’s one of the things that I like about Eric’s writing. I can look at and listen to what is happening around me and work out what I think of that myself, but I can’t see what is happening in the US and we certainly don’t tend to hear this kind of stuff from other Americans. And Eric’s perspective on historical events that reverberated around the Western world, is insightful and relevant to us too.

    Would I like it if someone in Australia wrote like Eric writes about the stuff going on close to home? Absolutely. But I’d think it was bloody ridiculous if Eric started writing about Australian politics and society when he wasn’t here to understand or interpret it.

    I’m now used to converting times. If it is an event I am really interested in I will make sure I find out the correct time locally. There are at least a couple of local astrologers who include local times for significant events.

    I notice when Eric talks about changing seasons. And I often think “that’s not happening here” but it is also a lovely reminder of how things are different around the world and how different our lives would be in another part of the world – usually my response is to thank God that I live where I do!

    It’s true that Sydney doesn’t experience extreme differences in the seasons – the changes are certainly noticeable, but we are not digging snow to go to work on a cold winters day. Our weather “highlights” are more in the nature of short term extremes – heavy storms (there was a fantastic hailstorm in Melbourne two weeks ago that I got caught in the middle of), heatwaves, bushfires, heavy rain, wind and floods. We are more into the unpredictable here! Incidentally, Sydney today was gloriously sunny. While we are past the heatwave weather, in my mind, Autumn hasn’t hit.

    Thanks Eric. I like your slice of alternative America and I appreciate how you open your world up to us. Come visit us here though – you’d love it too!

    Cheers
    Lesley

  9. What bothers me about Sixties culture are the deaths of many of the leaders who were pointing us to freedom, or even to something a little better than what existed. This sent a message that it’s dangerous to speak up, to live up to your values and your ideals, because you can be shot and that’s that. We can include Kent State on the list of political assassinations; that incident has always irked me as being something other than an honest mistake. The 70s were known as the Me Generation and in 1980 John Lennon was shot; this is not a person who would have shut up in the face of the injustices he saw.

    So the Sixties may have been a complacent time for “conservatives” and a do or die time for “liberals” (by the way I reject this paradigm but I’m using it for convenience right now) but the Sixties began with Kennedy getting his brains blown out, then there were assassinations in ’68 and ’70. We should remember Medgar Evers and Malcolm X as well. Then there was Harvey Milk in 1978. Nobody talks about civil rights leader Allard K. Lowenstein, who was murdered in 1980. There is a pattern. It’s not like right-wing leaders are getting offed left and right like this; I challenge anyone to name one assassination of a “conservative” leader. I can think of two unsuccessful attempts.

    The part of Sixties social culture that did not get assimilated was a spirit of inclusion and experimentation. To the contrary, an elitism infused Western culture in the 80s and 90s and by the 00s, we were dealing with so much terrorism related fear that there was barely room to breathe.

    We get another chance, with the Uranus-Pluto square. One commenter below talked about a gradual series of changes, but there is something else going on when you have Uranus and Pluto at all, especially in cardinal signs. Think of the leap from “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” to “I am the Walrus.” Play them one after the next and see what I mean. The thing that happened between the two songs was the Uranus-Pluto conjunction.

    I will review Rick Tarnas’s chapter on this cycle in Cosmos and Psyche and share some of what I re-learn. There is also an excerpt on that series of events (epochs of revolution, the Uranus-Pluto series of aspects), generously (as usual) donated by Rick, on the subscriber pages of Cosmic Confidential.

  10. E – Agreed. And I wouldn’t have kept coming here all these years.

    Actually, it just dawned on me – whilst I have plenty to do each day to keep me occupied, and then a bit more on top of that, I check in here several times a day. I don’t do that with anything else; I’m not a facebooker, tweeter (or twatter as I like to call it) or a myspace or bebo person. Not that I think there is anything wrong in that, I just haven’t got the time, I don’t want to make the time I suppose and truth is I prefer to meet people in person and on the phone when I can.

    So this is, apart from news channels, the place I visit most on the Internet, given the time I have spare in my day.

    I truly hate site adverts, they are the spawn of the devil. xxxxx

  11. So howza ’bout a little contrarian note here….

    What you say about us being mired in an “anti-Sixties” appears to be accurate, and it’s the line of thinking that I myself most often fall into.

    But just to try on a different perspective, what if we try to frame it this way:

    What if the culture moves through cycles of expansion and contraction no matter what — in other words, what if cultural evolution works like a swinging pendulum, going from liberal to conservative and back again.

    And cultures move forward in a sideways manner, very slowly over time, gaining only a tiny bit ground in between the sideways movement from left to right.

    So take that as a given, for the sake of argument, ok? The pendulum-swinging motion is the natural cultural process.

    Now, if cultures are doomed to move from left to right in this way, if we want to transcend this process and strive toward goals that actually lift us above it — like tolerance and diversity and peace — then we should be thinking, how can we limit the pendulum swings? How can we make the motion left and right less severe, so that we can actually get more movement forward?

    Forward movement is hard, it consists of adult behavior that takes responsibility for its actions. Most people on the far extremem ends of the left and the right spectrums don’t want to be adults, they don’t wan t to compromise or figure out effective ways to live together or move the whole shebang forward.

    Now in this context, I wonder if we aren’t actually seeing great improvements over the past! Yes, I think maybe this time, as the pendulum swings right, we have many more adult people among us, more people who’ve been exposed to humanitarian and progressive values, more people who can speak up and keep the right from going ballistic on us.

    I don’t know, but I wonder — would this current pendulum swing to the right be far far far worse had we not successfully assimilated much of the Sixties into mainstream culture?

    In other words, maybe what we’re seeing out there is a success story. If it’s evitable that the over-grown infants like Glenn Beck are going to rise to the top in this phase of the cycle, maybe it’s really encouraging that we have a lot of people to effectively counter them now.

    Maybe we have more than we’ve ever had before in any previous swing to the right.

    Maybe we’re gaining ground, but we just don’t see it yet.

    cheers, GG

  12. Hazel,

    As I have said before, I make a point of having local grounding. The Internet is disembodied to a dangerous degree; it’s a kind of a fantasy bubble. So I show you where I work and where I live and I tell you about my neighbors and show you the places I hang out — in the interest of grounding, of showing, and in truth as an invitation. Many writers in public would not show their personal haunt in a forest or their personal altar or their kitchen table desk, in the interest of privacy. I reveal these things to open up ambiance around my ideas; to give a sense of contact. I wrote much of Cosmic Confidential in my kitchen and at a taco restaurant. I publish photos of both (I’m looking around for a photo of Taco Juan’s — I need some new ones.)

    As for the aspects – in actual fact the aspects affect us all. My horoscope, the heart of my astrology writing, reaches across cultures, at least the ones where people speak English. You could say that my astrology is the “astrology of empire” because I use Saturn and Jupiter; or you could say that I take the side-streets and have some revolutionary spirit because I use Chiron, Eris, Ixion and Quaoar.

    I treat Western Civilization as one entity, and refer to it as such.

    Perhaps I am wrong, but my sense, from having been around, is that the US, UK and Europe are actually not that different; the differences are mostly superficial. To the extent that “people are people” this holds true for all these places, and I’ve known enough Australians to know that you’re basically the same folk. With few exceptions, we all like the Beatles, drink beer, love our friends and are friends with cats and dogs. Kids are kids everywhere.

    I don’t count the style differences as substantive (only interesting). It is true, Brits know when you’re kidding and Americans have no clue. I am still wondering if Asian folk are some other breed of soul and I am not convinced that they are. Culture is culture, but we all live on the same planet with the same basic needs: a dry roof, food, companionship, someone to remove the deadly snake from under the dresser, who slithered in from the bush the night before.

    I think that if anyone says we cover the US at the expense of the world, they are missing the fact that Planet Waves is informed by an international experience: our staff and contacts are always flung all over the place; I have traveled extensively and got to know people everywhere I’ve lived, I collect them, and I take a perspective that is NOT American by any stretch of the imagination.

    Let me give you a clue.

    If this were really an American website, it would be covered with adverts.

  13. E – That is a very generous and reasonable invitation. And it makes sense.

    I mentioned it to you on the phone a few weeks back, when you asked for my view of the site, that I have sometimes felt, particularly in this last year, that it was more like USA Waves, than Planet Waves. It seems unfair of me to have had that view at all. Of course you and the team are going to cover what you know best, which is how it ought to be. And anyway, how could you cover it all and keep the quality/integrity? It’s not possible.

    For me, it is an education here. I have a better knowledge and understanding (though still limited, but that’s down to me) on how US politics work and the issues you are going through. It has been a revelation and I’m grateful for it. The contributors on this site and I include the bloggers, add so much more to it – it is enlightening, cubed.

    To invite others to make a contribution to provide what they themselves feel is lacking strengthens this collective in my view, in creativity, education and taking responsibility. I look forward to learning more about other parts of the world, from their point of view and making more of a contribution myself.

    Love H.

  14. Note to Readers in the Southern Hemisphere

    At the end of this somewhat long reply is an invitation to those in NZ or Aus to send photos.

    Dear Don, et al

    The reason I avoid dealing in Australian and NZ time is that I don’t want to make time errors. You would like those even less, and all it would take would be a few mistakes to lose all credibility. There are lot of time zones down your way and the rules of daylight time are different.

    I figure that everyone can tell time in their zone off of GMT or UTC (same thing, for our purposes) and many people can figure out their zone off of New York time. It would still be awkward to stuff the lead of an article with six time zones. I would start to sound like NASA, or is it Nasa (in the British style). Can people in NZ do a quicker calculation off of Sydney time than NY time? Please let me know.

    Yet would stating the time of the equinox in New Zealand really constitute being aware of what’s going on in the Southern Hemisphere? What would that really look like, if we did it well?

    To me, the fact that I state that I am talking about the Northern Hemisphere when a season changes is evidence that I am thinking about the issue. I don’t generally just say, oh, it’s autumn — I state where it’s autumn. Even writing for my local magazine I say “It’s now spring in the Northern Hemisphere.”

    Mostly though, I try to keep a local feel to my writing, and stay grounded on the planet where I am, and in what I can observe. Usually you get photos of where I am. I will show you my local forest or a cat on my street.

    My astrology is based on the seasons as well as on the movements of the planets. This is true of much natural religion. It’s a local thing. The Quarter Days and the Cross Quarter Days are one of the foundations of my astrological thinking, and that rhythm is helpful to follow for astrologers who want to feel the work rather than just think about it.

    Some down in the Southern Hemisphere reverse the order of Beltane-Samhain in their ritual practice (this would be for pagans), and I’ve even had mail stating that when I mention Beltane that is “Northern Hemisphere-o’centric” because it’s really Samhain down under. (To readers unfamiliar with these terms, it would be like going trick-or-treating in May, which could be fun, kids would love it – we should try that.)

    We could then go a step further and say that the Sun really goes into Libra today, or that all Libras should read the Aries horoscope. Jonathan has written for Australian tabloids for a few decades (I’ve just had a few years here and there) and believes that the signs work just fine in the Southern Hemisphere. So where do we draw the line?

    Also the weather patterns are totally different in the Southern Hemisphere. It may be winter coming in Sydney but you’re not going to be buried under five feet of snow several times, followed by flooding, which a lot of us up here have just survived — we have good reason to welcome the spring and dread winter’s arrival. When you had dust storms down there, I made sure I wrote about this and posted photos, but there’s more to life than dust storms.

    I will give as much coverage to NZ and Aus as correspondents down your way send to me. Give me something interesting and I’ll reference it or publish the whole thing. Trust me I am curious — but trying not to over-reach.

    Lots of Europeans want me to write more about Europe and some UK people think that I’m too fixated on US politics. But do you really think it would be wise of me to try to cover the whole world? Should I try to cover the nuances of UK politics when someone there could do it a lot better? I think I provide a unique perspective on US events, which I know from living in many countries are often enough the talk of the town. And in my dream world, I would have correspondents working from the UN, at the EU, in Washington, in Sydney, in London and many other places.

    I could not write about the poetry or beauty of the seasons changing in a place where I am not witnessing it, unless I was writing fiction or a memoir. But I would be really truly happy to publish photos of the Southern Hemisphere taken by readers, or articles on anything involving the changing of the seasons or the influence of astrology on the other side of the world.

    That is an invitation. Let’s start with photos of what autumn looks like in the Southern Hemisphere. Please explain what the plants are doing in your caption.

  15. # Susanneon 19 Mar 2010 at 5:26 pm
    Spring bounces in, loudly sing cuckoo and so forth. With the fiery energy of Aries, buds burst, lambs leap, and everybody gads about in a vernal manner.
    Brilliant, as an ex Aucklander of thirty plus years what a fantastic multicultual city it is and was sorry to leave but family commitments in Australia in the 1980’s drew me to this great country.
    Yes I got fed up with hearing about everything about the northern hemisphere as being the only place where things happen or even perhaps there is nothing else as I often feel in Erics blogs, as everything is totally centered on the Northern Hemisphere, sometime I feel to email him to inform him that we exist as it does not appear that he yet knows!!!
    Yes even here in Australia the leaves are turning red, autumn or fall as known up there and what a summer it has being, Mars retro sure has left heaps of dregs to clear and as it moves forward I feel I sigh of relief as light at the end of the tunnel is appearing, thanks to the blogs and feedback from so many really aware bloggers one is able to get a real perspictive on what is really happening.
    Thanks heaps Len for your positive responces and insight to the huge number of spiratually aware people that are down under and may not yet be raising their voices but I hope we can be the beginning, I had many emails with Priya Kale some time back re the time zone difference and now she incorporates everything down south in her blogs as I expected she would as she is so brillant also including now the time zones for the eastern seaboard and those living more west can work out the times with extremely simple calculations, this is something Eric has stated he will not do!!!
    Len I encounted many brillant astrologers in the time I was in Auckland and know several excellant ones here, because they have not as yet spoken out or stuck their neck out dose not mean they dont exist, when in Auckland a top Hindu Astrolloger that I lived with for some time mentioned That Americia was rulled under a certain sign (this I cant remember) but stated it was the ego that would dominate and I think the lesson here is to be more humble and listern for a change, especially those of us downunder.
    Don Australia.

  16. Eric,
    Thank you for a perspective that confers power to your readers. That’s a great service and quite a creative accomplishment. For what greater purpose art than to inspire and empower?

    Can anyone out there show me another astrologer operating at such a level?

    Suzanne (in New Zeland) and Don (in Australia), thank you for speaking up in recent blog commentary. Your motivation to do so is part of a greater energy that is emerging and forming itself. Your choice to comment serves to help awaken us all.

    Yes, there are a lot of cycles coming together at the moment. Many thanks to those, like you, reading this, who can step back and step up at the same time.

  17. Suzanne,

    Are you suggesting that I ignore the changing of the seasons?

    To be clear, I did not say it was spring all over the world — I said that:

    “Here in the Northern Hemisphere, spring begins when the Sun’s rays square the equator…”

    Why don’t you send us a photo of those red leaves? Most people have only heard of New Zealand. They haven’t seen it. Also, I would welcome any writers and astrologers from the Southern Hemisphere to participate as contributors to this series of articles on Daily Astrology & Adventure.

    ef

  18. Spring bounces in, loudly sing cuckoo and so forth. With the fiery energy of Aries, buds burst, lambs leap, and everybody gads about in a vernal manner. Unless of course, you are south of the line marked 0 degrees on the map at this link http://www.worldpress.org/images/maps/world_600w.jpg.
    Eric, please can we stop this assumption that what is happening for the northern hemisphere is true for the world? It’s infested politics, too, for as long as the north has colonised the south. To pronounce that March 21 = Spring Equinox, QED, priming our moods and reflecting in the dance of the planets and luminaries, and that this is of course backed up by universal cultural myths over millennia is only innocent if we are genuinely unaware that there is a southern hemisphere. Once we know that there is, then I think it’s important to drop this view, since to do otherwise would indicate that we are actually potty. Thank you to Len, who as far as I can see, has managed to write an article on similar matters that is relevant to the planet as a whole.

    I know that only about 10% of the world’s population lives in the South. But we do have a reality here, and it sure as hell ain’t spring.

    Is this challenging?

    Reverently
    Susie
    Auckland, New Zealand, where warm dry winds will soon turn the leaves RED, after the dreamy late summer of watery reveries (Pisces).

  19. I think we need to recognize that the 2012 era is NOT the do-or-die moment for the left in the way that the 60’s was. But it is the do-or-die moment for the right.

    If you were a conservative in the late 1960’s, you supported your government, waived the flag, were disgusted by the hippies, maybe volunteered for military service if you were young, and might have showed up at a rally (or lynching) to push back against housing integration. Other than that, your life was quiet, uneventful, and repressed in that quintessentially mid-century American kind of way. The revolutionary activist energy was almost entirely absent on the right. There’s a reason Nixon characterized his political base as the SILENT majority.

    The left is the silent majority today. So if you’re wondering why the left isn’t pushing back more forcefully, why liberals for the most part aren’t rising up in the streets, why the enlightened seem so passive in the face of madness, you should look at how conservatives and moderates behaved in the late 60’s and early 70’s. There wasn’t some big wake-up moment where right-wingers started taking to the streets in protest. Rather, the late 60’s and early 70’s brought a wave of escalating shocks and traumas that produced mass disillusionment with government, contempt for the left, lingering racial resentments, all kind of sexual hang-ups, mass greed and narcissism, and decades of conservative ascendancy.

    I foresee something similar to this, an escalating wave of shocks and traumas, but this time brought about largely by revolutionary activism on the right. The outcome of this era will be renewed faith in government, contempt for the right, deepening racial integration, gradual sexual liberation, a renewed sense of community and national purpose, and decades of progressive ascendancy. Much of this is inevitable regardless of what the right does. But established political movements don’t give up their power easily and slip quietly into the night.

  20. I also met Bobby Seale; we had dinner, with my then g.f Sabine and another woman who I don’t know; this was in San Francisco.

    He personally told me the story of the Chicago 7 + the Chicago 1 – himself. I remember just about everything — and one thing I learned that night was that to get into the Black Panthers, you needed to complete a reading list.

    That’s what you had to do: study. There may have been more requirements, but the reading list was the non-negotiable basis of admission. It was a long list, probably about 20 books.

    He also believes the reason the feds came after the party was the free breakfast program: feeding hundreds of thousands of young students free breakfast in cities across the country, using food donated by black and sympathetic grocers.

  21. “My concern is that this conjunction is going to embolden them more than it’s going to speak to the people who wish they could stand up, express themselves and be free for its own sake. I understand that it can feel dangerous to do this, but I’m wondering how far into the basement, the closet or the corner we’re willing to be pushed before we push back or just take our space.”
    …………………….

    I like your analysis a lot astrodem “convulsions of a dying movement”; it is vital, if we are to honour this space, that we look at the bigger picture!!

    I am not so sure that there are low cost housing projects and residential areas that are full of people who are fearful; some, definitely! Apathetic, uninformed, lacking in direction, lacking any kind of help or any sense of community or anybody who cares enough to change things, would be my take!! Everybody is feeling it, there is no doubt!!

    But here is where we converge; leadership, inspiration and suggestion of how to change things is what is needed!! We have covered this in the sexuality debate! If we can discuss, then we can identify strengths and areas that need more discussion. Eric has written of a meeting, albeit brief, with Eldridge Cleaver! Those of us who were around at the time that the Black Panthers were active can only reflect with amazement at the heroics and courage of people that stood up, really stood up, when the chances of getting yourself killed were very high! I have worked with government officials in West Africa who were indeed room-mates of Eldridge Cleaver while studying for their PHDs in New York! The focus in Africa is simple; it is OUR country; we shall build a new model of governance that does indeed feed and nurture all of our people. Corruption does its damnest of course to obliterate the process, but there are some seriously focussed people who will not be denied.

    That sort of vision is what we need to nurture. Whether it is in your schools, community centres, housing projects or places of work. The strength of Saturn in the Uranus Jupiter Pluto T square will be to moderate the impulsive, the expansive, and the inevitabley transformative into a coherent line of progress that does not rise to the challenge of the convulsions of the conservative right; does not go off too far on the tripping out visions of the 60s; most definitely does not transform itself into some militia response, but becomes a seed bed of nurture for the future that we were denied, by our inability to comprehend what was actually happening in the 1960s. I would, at this point , most emphatically assert that Chirons discovery, just as Neptune’s orbit went outside that of Pluto between 1980 and 2000, has brought that light to bear on the failings of the 60s approach. We just weren’t ready for the long march!! The illusions of Neptune, not being acted upon by Pluto, were just too much Diazapan and Valium; no cries of sanity were audible!

    This time round it feels a tad different!! Like a planet that went retro and produced a small elipse on its orbital path, it is as if we are picking up the threads of a movement whose direction is written in our destiny! That does not mean that we shall do nothing; or assume that we can just go along for the ride! There is a need to pick up on the work that has already been done; let this Spring energy set in motion a crie de coeur that reaches out to each and everyone of your contemporaries. Ask the question “whats with you today….?” Discuss your future at every opportunity; it may yet become the biggest opportunity that each of us has ever been granted!!

    If our sexuality is the expression of our true selves, then our work in the community is the expression of our hopes, aspirations, ambitions, and perhaps most empoweringly, our faith!!

    I have been truly heartened by the pages that I have been reading on the PW blog these past weeks, particularly as Mars stationed; if you can handle that sort of squeeze, you can pretty much handle anything!!

    PH

  22. Eric,

    I completely agree with your analysis of the Jupiter/Uranus conjunction. My theory, and the one I have been espousing for the past few years, is that we are going through a process a lot like the late 1960’s but with the roles played by liberalism and conservatism reversed. Imagine if MLK had been president and Nixon and his acolytes had been protesters…and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what’s in store. I hate to be a pessimist about the June 8 conjunction — especially when you consider how much potential an event like this has — but I think we’re going to experience a major right wing domestic terrorist attack around that time. There will surely be other developments as well, but I think the thrust of them will revolve around the American right ratcheting up their hate and their rage several orders of magnitude.

    While the prospect of an upheaval fueled by radical conservatism may seem frightening (and it is), it’s also important to remember that the liberal upheaval of the 1960’s was followed by 40 years of conservative backlash. Nixon and then ultimately Reagan came to power because the silent majority fundamentally disapproved of the left’s activism, racial politics, and enlightened sexual attitudes. I think we’re going to see something similar happen in response to the events of the next few years. But instead of a conservative and reactionary silent majority, the right-wing upheaval is going to be playing out upon a backdrop of an emerging progressive majority. In fact, this emerging progressive majority is a large part of what’s fueling the right’s anger: the knowledge that “their” America is disappearing because of long-term irreversible demographic, economic, cultural, and political trends.

    Movement conservatism reached its peak in early 2005, just like New Deal liberalism peaked in early 1965. The influences of New Deal liberalism continued to play a role — in a watered-down form — throughout the 1970’s. And I expect movement conservatism to do the same in our current decade. But in spite of the crazy, mind-bending stuff that’s going to happen over the next several years, it’s important to remember that we’ll be experiencing the final convulsions of a dying movement whose influence over our politics is finally waning.

    astrodem

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