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Why is it, exactly, that in the midst of all this exciting, evolutionary, revolutionary Uranus-square-Pluto energy, we’re getting the likes of Rick Santorum near the front of the Republican presidential pack — and a resurgence of control measures on women’s bodies that crosses international lines? Eric’s investigation in this subscriber issue takes us to Nessus, a small, potent centaur planet at the midpoint of the Uranus-Pluto square — and an understanding of why the control campaign can get so much traction now.

To read the full issue — which includes Eric’s famous 12-sign horoscopes for this week, plus astro-news briefs — you can purchase it individually here. To read our premium content every week as this season’s astrology warms up, try us for three months here.

22 thoughts on “Friday premium edition is being mailed to our subscribers”

  1. Hi Eric and All, sorry to be joining this conversation a little late.
    I thought you might find what’s been happening here in the Australian defence forces an interesting illustration of Eric’s point about Nessus in Aquarius: “the midpoint is the place where we can look for how to resolve that tension, or what the deeper issue might be. That deeper issue seems to be a form of sexual abuse projected into a group environment (Aquarius) with the help of the media, including the Internet.” Check out our national broadcaster at http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3442781.htm to hear about a Facebook site that Australian soldiers have been using to post appallingly misogynist (and racist) images and abusive messages, like the classic: “All women are filthy, lying whores”. This scandal broke in our news 29 February.

  2. I was deeply affected by the comment from the woman in your writing class. It is no small thing to feel repressed around your sexuality – straight or gay. But how terrible it must be to feel lost and afraid in every area of your life.

    It is certainly challenging to discover who we ‘really’ are when, all around us, there are countless individuals and groups holding forth on what is ‘right’, ‘moral’ and ‘normal’ – all of which are codewords for ‘safe’. The era of the Pluto/Uranus square is certainly the time to break down/out of ‘safe’ and discover what is ‘real’.

    In my practice, when a client brings up something s/he is too afraid to do, I always ask: ‘So what do you think would happen if you DID do such-and-such?’ Usually, the answer revolves around the fear of being condemned, abandoned, even killed.

    What distorted belief systems have been imposed on us in the past that are now preventing us from being who we really want to be? How have we been indoctrinated, and by whom? And why do we continue to choose to live our lives through outdated paradigms?

    The more of these falsehoods we can uncover, the freer we will be. I sincerely wish this woman success in her personal journey.

  3. That was some thumbnail, a_priori — certainly humanizes the lad. I read an article quoting some of his college buddies yesterday. They don’t recognize what he’s become. I loved pic’s of him with a pipe in his mouth … playing “dress up.” Still is, likely. Rick’s riding a wave of “ain’t-it-awful” right into the mouth of obscurity, bless him.

    Harold and Maude is one of my all-time-fav’s, Pam — dark and lush and funny. Say what you want about the 70s, we were “on” to ourselves back then. A whole list of extraodrdinary movies showed us where we were on the human evolutionary scale … and then we started to take ourselves seriously. Bad move.

    Michelle, I’m sympathetic to your awakening. Much as God has no grandchildren — whatever our relationship to the Divine, it’s one on one — feminism has none either. Each woman must guard her civil liberties in real time, not depending on the whims of changing viewpoints and laws … and her daughters, if any, must do the same. Old barrier-busters like me discovered that in the 80s and 90s, when spandex suddenly ruled the world and then Britney Spears flashing her pink-parts became the new face of liberation. Each generation has to remember: God bless the child that’s got her own.

  4. One thing I would remind readers of is that discussing sex in American society is like having a picnic on a garbage dump. Even if you pack a basket of fresh food and a chilled bottle of wine, you’re still sitting on a heap of decay, bacteria and unacknowledged pain.

    What that does is make every sexual conversation into a potential controversy. This is particularly true when many elements in the discussion are politicizing sex — the ones who try to pass laws banning it, or who use it to stir up anger and get votes; and the ones who turn the issue into the politics of identity in its various shades of us versus them. Either of these positions can quickly degrade into hypocrisy.

    Adapting a line from Kurt Cobain, everyone is queer. No matter how ‘vanilla’ your sexual proclivities, no matter how ‘respectable’ you are, there’s something about you that you know is different, if only different than your family and your peers. There’s something about you that you’re not sure you want anyone to know and at the same time may want someone, or everyone, to know.

    Erotic experiences, desires and needs are connected with our deepest emotional makeup; they are connected to primal experiences and our core experience of self. No matter how disguised or thinly it may be by a gold crucifix and prim and proper attitude, or the family guy image, in that dimension where words cease to have meaning one’s experience of oneself is emotional and energetic — and it’s different, and it’s very likely to be embarrassing on some level if you put it in the context of the work-a-day world.

    Behind that curtain of embarrassment is what we crave the most. As part of the process of unraveling sexual fetters is a necessary crossing through that veil, not just once but many times, perhaps on an ongoing basis. Coming out, to oneself, one’s partner, one’s community in any form, is not about dignity or pride. It’s about claiming one’s existence and being real in the moment.

    No matter how hot or gorgeous people think you are, or you think you are, there’s likely to be something you want that you cannot say; no matter how desexualized you may feel by external factors, the same holds true.

  5. Spiritually and sexually lost? Find an astrologer. See if what they say about who you are and the patterns of your life that they see are who you are and if not why not. Always useful. And often the most useful thing is in conversation around some astrological point.

    Write down your dreams (night) and over time you come to know something of what your dreams are telling you. Ask yourself questions about where the lines are for you. For example, I had an abortion at 28, very early because I knew immediately I was pregnant. Like the blood changed direction, the morning after pill didn’t work. Even so, minor operation at 5 weeks, but psychologically I said never again. Even sleeping with guys I wasn’t willing to have a baby with as well. Then 5 years ago I had an abortion (induced labour) at nearly 6 months. A downe’s baby, my husband refused, he said we were too old, and it was too much pressure now and on the other children when we were dead. It was a hard decision. My decision finally. Mine. You didn’t feel able to go all the way my GP said, which shocked me but was true enough.

    Ask too. Say I really don’t see how things make sense. if they make sense, show me how in ways I can understand that are supportive and gentle. Show me what being in touch with myself and my spirituality and place in the world are. Or what ever your heartfelt things are…

    xxxp

  6. Eric, I’ve just read this week’s great issue – do you get tired of superlatives ever?

    Coming out. I think if you relate honestly with your friends (and friendships arise out of honest meetings in thick and thin?), then there is normally one friend that you know is pretty much not going to disown you. That’s the one to start with. They may even know already and been waiting for you to be ripe enough in yourself to mention it. Then there are other things like I realised that if I was going to have an honest relationship with my parents it was necessary to communicate that I wasn’t a virgin anymore. I know these are mild issues (not in our family) but what I’ve found is that honesty pretty much saves you anywhere if anything can save you, and if you are honest often other people can be too and then you build a relationship that presupposes honesty (if honesty is getting the important things across and not leaving people with false information or no information. It isn’t always appropriate to be honest I’m sure but nearly always). My parents were cousins and that caused consternation in the family, so my parents were maybe more open to keeping the conversation open no matter what as a strategy. I know these are mild issues but still big in our family. One of my gay friends came out finally to his parents. His Mum said ‘tell me something I didn’t know’. And his ultra manly straight Dad said something like ‘Life throws some funny curve balls doesn’t it.’ There is also a relief factor in finally being who you are.

    Rick Santorum. Do people vote for him out of fear. Is this again lack of education in the States. Is it not having the right to say no to authority figures. I read what you wrote with my throat closing and tension and feeling options closing and wanting to vomit. If any of these Republican candidates are chosen, surely the States will vote wholeheartedly for Obama (won’t you?). There is a good man at heart. Very lovable. Bags of potential

    bises

  7. Excellent! from the article to the posts. wow.

    Maybe a way to heal this surge of sexually/spiritually oppressive energy from the frightened right wing caucasian male faction is to see them publicly expressing their incredibly denied horniness, in a collective surge of lust so strong, that well, the whole nation orgasms into a new reality.

    Makes sense to me.

  8. Did anyone ever see Harold and Maude? I loved it in my 20’s and saw it again yesterday and thought it immensely radical, lots of teeth squeaking moments. And funny too. I wondered if in fact the 60’s were about creative liberation first of all. And this seems to fit in here in this discussion a bit.

    For Jenny, my guess is that bi could be totally ‘threatening’ to anyone. ie total competition if you aren’t on a solid basis between you… And so difficult because you know you can never be ‘enough’ (unless the other person is holding themselves in), easy to see why bi could look like an ‘excuse’ to be hanging loose totally… And equally how a poly set could work there?

    Perhaps a difficulty with these issues is mixing between the groups – like oil on water? bi poly can surely work (just a question of finding the people with you), gay gay works, lesbian lesbian works, mono mono works, but mixes between the groups are less evident?

    A couple of times recently I’ve heard the term revolving doors, and I think that is perhaps easy to mis-take. Either life goes on and there is always another chance, or nothing has value because there will always be another candidate. It isn’t always clear what the intention is.

  9. For all anyone looking for help in uncovering, healing and expressing their sexuality and capacity for intimacy, I recommend the work of (the late) Stan Dale and the Human Awareness Institute. Their workshops are still available: http://www.hai.org/

    I participated in many of them in Australia and discovered so much about my sexuality and my ability to make choices in the safe, loving atmosphere. The essential thing I learned was how to identify and then ASK for my 100% – whatever that was – and to accept a yes OR a no and be okay with either.

    These workshops are clothing optional – and they really are ‘optional’ – so be aware this is not some ‘conceptual’ framework but based on your own experience as you go through the exercises. So worth the effort to participate if you are ready to learn at this level.

  10. Reflecting on the words of Eric’s writing class participant, I must say I had that same viewpoint: coming out of the closet, in more ways than one usually thinks of as sexually. And I found it an exciting view. The (re)search of myself. What is (more) possible. Of course there is always the hold-back, coming from the safety-issue. But in my imagination, for now ‘only’ in my imagination, it is great to explore possibilities. Especially when I am moving in mist. Because at some points in my life I have choosen to be the one I am now, creating my own reality. It starts, I quess, with the imagination. Exploring the ‘believes’ and the ‘what if I think the opposite’. That’s a nice one: out of opposites there always comes a middle, a center! – Libra ascendant ;-). Seeing/feeling what it does to my soul, my desire, my lust for life, my longing, my heart. Rewriting my own DNA. I hope Neptune in Pisces will get us all to that point. The mist helps, the “I am not able to see the way” is a metaphore as I see it to get rid of the blueprints in my life. Don’t be afraid of the mist…?! Love from the Netherlands, Heleen

  11. plagiarizing myself from another place. the topic was “naivite.” and neptune, i think. i agree with your emailer. it’s all linked. judging by the food i’ve been eating these days and my sexuality being in a serious downfall… (odd). i won’t go into background, but this is what i wrote:

    i had to do this. because this topic (other people saying i am naive) has been an issue in my life. see below for defs.

    i am not without experience, that’s for bloody sure. i am not without a measure of wisdom. however, i think i retain, involuntarily, and innocence about humankind. quite frankly, i’d be dead without the naive. but all that neptune and jupiter and shit… well… the bad side of naive is escapism. because there are realities that are harsh, even in my life… even though my harsh realities are probably so much less than other realities.

    but i believe in the indomitable spirit of the best of humankind. no matter how tested that is. no matter how it is crushed by the world at large, because, let’s face it… this is going on big time. the crushing. i was in court all morning today for an issue that should not be an issue. cars are more important than women??? since fucking when?

    i’m working on a thread in my head on the cars/women thing…. because i think it is a larger societal issue. ie: let’s re-strip women’s rights. i am working really hard on beng coherent about that.

    i was naive enough to believe that the legacy of women being equal in the eyes of the law was passed on to me. and so maybe i became complacent. i assumed we were all set that way. that IS naive.

    Naive: a) (of a person or action) Showing a lack of experience, wisdom, or judgment: “the rather naive young man had been totally misled”.
    b) Natural and unaffected; innocent: “Andy had a sweet, naive look when he smiled”.

  12. Hi Eric,

    I feel like your comment about bisexual and transgendered people in today’s newsletter could really use some further explanation. If I didn’t know you, I’d take it the wrong way and be really offended.

    You of all people must know that those who identify in a clear box, even that of being gay or lesbian, have it unbelievably easier than those who call themselves “bi,” or whatever else. There was a time in my life when I first discovered that I like women, and for a while, I identified as lesbian. I made the statement, stood my ground, and found myself accepted or at least begrudged on a social level, on very definite ground. It was easy, even fun. Once I realized that my sexuality is much more complicated, and began to admit that to myself and others, expressing myself in that way evoked completely new and unprecedentedly negative responses. I get told on a regular basis that I can’t be bi: if I’m gay, that’s fine, but I do have to choose between being straight or gay. Gay women won’t date me, because they feel that I either haven’t made up my mind to be gay, or that I’m just some straight girl experimenting. In that light, your comment about bisexual and transgendered people just beginning to figure it out sounds similar to those anti-bisexual sentiments, even though I know you mean it differently.

    The fact is, I did change what I wanted to express about myself to society, but the level to which I had figured out how to be out of the closet did not suddenly become less than it had been when I had expressed myself as lesbian. The only thing that changed was that the response from the world loomed suddenly uglier and more repressive. And don’t even get me started on society’s reaction to transgendered people; I know that you know that the descrimination they face has few comparisons. So maybe it’s not that bi and trans folks are “just starting to figure it out.” Maybe it’s that society can’t figure them out, and there is so much more work to be done in that area. Maybe we haven’t done as much work as gays and lesbians, but then again, we are a much smaller minority facing much greater hurdles, and all of us that I have met are doing the best we can.

    Just some thoughts…

    -Jenny

  13. As a long-time subscriber, I always get value from the PW newsletters; well, from just about everything here, really. But reading this week’s Sag and Pisces horoscopes (my sun and rising signs) … talk about cutting right to the chase.

    I have to agree with a_priori. “These are impressive PW editions”. I’ve noticed a new energy since the upgraded website went online: clear, solid and dynamic. Not just the written material but the audio as well. The phrase “on target” comes to mind.

  14. Recently I was reading an astrology article (sorry don’t remember where) that was looking at Sanitarium and Romney’s Mars position and explaining how that affected their popularity in this year’s political process. It seemed to make sense, but I haven’t achieved chart creating, transit mapping, aspect knowing status.

  15. One of the participants in Monday’s writing class sent this to me. She raises some great points and I have some ideas in reply though I want to hear from you first.

    If you take a step out of your particular closet, that means announcing your existence in some way, which is an experiment. When you do, you’ll find out how your friends actually feel — and you may need to respond in some way as a result. It can be challenging indeed to find a group of friends who are supportive of your actual sexual and relational desires, and you may need to go it alone for a while. That’s more than enough to keep most people in the closet, wishing they could do something about their desires but terrified to take action in any form. And it’s also a pretty big excuse not to take any risks, particularly the risk of actually being yourself. After a while, though, the walls of that closet are likely to feel like they’re closing in.

    As I’ve been reporting the past few weeks, Neptune has recently joined Chiron in Pisces, which is activating some of the most rich erotic territory of the zodiac. Neptune is feeding our dreams and fantasy lives, and providing plenty of inspiration for art and photography. Chiron is accentuating both curiosity and a craving for experience, and the awareness that experience is essential on the path to healing. Chiron in Pisces might point to any of a wide diversity of things you haven’t tried yet but have long wanted to. At a certain point, fantasy is not going to be enough.

    I trust that you will immediately recognize this very provocative snippet from your newsletter this morning. (And, hey, thanks for the shout-out/research credit. You are way too generous. I didn’t do anything other than send you a useless and pretty histrionic note based on my very confused perspective.)

    Ironically if I HAD understood the assignment, I could have written for days. The ‘personal’ is so much easier for me. I have spent a lifetime (at the very least the better part of this past decade) navel-gazing. And this idea of coming out of the closet is one that resonates. I attribute my own closet-edness to being a woman, to being 5 feet tall and less than 100 pounds, to appearing to be a decade younger than the number of years I’ve actually lived, to being raised Catholic, and, perhaps, to a lack of character. My coming out, however, doesn’t have so much to do with sexuality, as it does with who I am, beyond my sexuality.

    The reason I’m writing to you again (well, one of the reasons) is because I’m curious about this seeming separation. Not that you are stating that you are separating sexuality from the rest of our lives (and my bet is that you would state the opposite), but it is difficult get behind what you are saying (or to know how to synthesize this idea) because it is impossible to parse my closet-ed sexuality out from the closet-ed rest-of-my-life.

    Let me explain:

    I cannot fathom how to “be myself sexually” when–first of all, I have NO IDEA where I would begin to look for that unrepressed self and–second of all–because I don’t know who I am in any of the other realms of my life, either. I can’t separate out my repressed sexuality from my repressed LIFE.

    My religion (or lack of it) informs my thoughts which inform my diet which informs my health which informs my physiology which informs my dreams and fantasies which…wait for it…informs my sexuality. Personally, I am lost. I won’t go into all of the details, but I am lost on many levels: creatively, spiritually, sexually, career-wise, socially. I’ve had a few life-upheavals over the past few years and I came out the other side of things realizing that I hadn’t given many elements of life much consideration (i.e. What do **I** believe? vs What I was taught to believe.) I am handicapped at this point. And stuck. ((How the hell do I figure out how to be sexually liberated, when my creativity is as constipated as my femininity? Is the idea that one release (ha!) will follow the other?))

    Another question: as a culture, we are not only lost sexually–but many of us are lost spiritually. We are disconnected from our source (whatever that source might be) and so sexuality, as it stands now, either gets truncated (Santorum) or perverted (Chris Brown?). Hence, smack-around-porn. Hence, trans-vaginal ultrasounds. Too many women I know think that they are “owning their sexuality” when they let a man do whatever he wants TO them. Too many others are proud that they subvert desires that seem to “slutty”. My point here isn’t to argue with you about sexual freedom, that’s another whole conversation, but to point to the fact that we don’t have a language (even those of us who are trying to become literate) for this kind of revolution. (Hell, it’s taken me an hour to write this email.)

    So I guess I’m writing to you to say that I’d love for your next post to go a step farther. We’re stuck. I’m stuck. I’m lucky enough to see that. I also understand a real need to get out of the closet. I know where the door handle is. I can even SEE the damn thing and imagine what it would feel like to turn the knob. But I am paralyzed. I…can’t…move…my…arm….The minutes of standing in the closet are excruciating. Interminable. But what is the catalyst for motion when one is so terrified they are paralyzed?

    Yes. At a certain point, fantasy isn’t enough. But fantasy is where many of us spent dozens of those repressed years. It’s the only safe land we knew. And know. Where do we seek passage to this other land? And with whom? I, for one, am finding in nearly impossible to do on my own.

  16. “Why is it exactly. . . we’re getting the likes of Rick Santorum near the front of the Republican presidential pack. . ” I’d call it exorcicism. The boil has been lanced, the pus is stinky and gross but it’s part of the process and necessary in order to begin the healing.
    be

  17. a_priori — thanks for the window into santorum’s family; fascinating. glad you joined the conversation!

  18. Eric: Thank you for a persuasive and passionate piece. It’s comprehensive yet succinct, all the parts fit together and your message comes through as whole, grounded and sane. Once again, you raise the bar. The horoscopes are so bright they can be read in the dark.

  19. He’s younger than Romney, and has more fire and brimstone. We’re hearing from (most of) the same masses who put Palin on the ticket last time. They’re blatantly lawless; the faces of hate.

    These are impressive PW editions. Love the meaty new format, the news bits, the tidy, colorful professionalism.

  20. It does seem like the current attraction to Santorum is about sex. People projecting their sexual fears outward onto women, LGBT, etc., people who feel sinful enough about their own sexuality and frightened of the changes they see proceeding in the world. They want to turn back an imaginary clock to an imaginary time, where mom and dad were WASP(y) Leave it to Beaver types.

    They’re stuck in some kind of mythological mind-set that tells them that God will save them and theirs if only they can turn back that imaginary clock. God will save them from climate change (which they won’t admit to exist), from the ‘browning’ of America, i.e., the loss of white hegemony, from a poor economy, from having to think, from having to be free.

    For Santorum it is a ruse to ride the wave of sexual repression into the white house. For his followers it’s a chance to get something back they don’t know they never really had.

  21. Rick Santorum is my second cousin. We share a large, italian-american heritage. His conservative father is now deceased. His mother, Kay, is amazing, solid, modest, strong, a nurse, one of the first women to attend Yale. She is the matriarch of our east-coast family, well-respected, loved, admired.

    I’m sure she loves her maniac son.

    There was a family reunion, the last one I can remember attending with ‘lil Ricky, when he was a shiny, new attorney, talking about running for office. There were many jokes and much laughter about that. Ours is family run by its women. We are a matrilineal line. The subject of ‘choice’ came up that year and Rick was bombarded. For two days the women of my family aired their burgeoning opinions, and outrage- that the issue should ever be an issue again, i.e. closed book, it’s been decided. Rick enjoyed the attention as you can imagine. That was over twenty years ago. Before he met his wife and found dog. I saw her once, and several of their pale, pale brood. {shivers}

    Many people in the family still live in PA, and even blue Pennsylvanians are a little red. Still, he has a few supporters, mostly over 70 and women voting their wallets. I remember a guy with charm, who wore hawaiian shirts, sported floppy mustaches, cigars and laughed with the rest of us.

    I’m already so tired of seeing his face. The ‘furor’ quality, the staging, the makeup… I see a plump little boy’s face, a supplicant. And then always, underneath it, I see Kay, knowing, watching, eternal; and others. The ancestor’s gaze.

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