A reader recently sent in a question about getting married on the Gemini New Moon. Apparently some pseudo astrologer told her the New Moon is a “bad day to get married.” I don’t think that any astrologer has any business making a statement like that, and it’s basically proof that they are not an astrologer. An astrologer must apply a reasoning process consistent with the known foundations of astrology, and with a touch of originality. Such a statement does not qualify.

The Lovers, drawn by Pamela Coleman Smith with some theoretical input from Edmund Arthur Waite. This is from the 'Rider-Waite Tarot' which should be called the 'Smith-Waite Tarot'.

The New Moon is about a new story: a marriage is such. It’s a great image: the Moon and the Sun coming together. Now, we could talk about marriage itself and whether it’s such a good idea: to bind oneself to one person, with no guarantee the relationship will work out, creating lots of legal headaches if it does not. This, when you could just as well make a personal commitment without a government bond involved. But that is another topic entirely.

Gemini is the tarot card of The Lovers, sometimes (in very old decks) called The Brothers. So the idea is that the relationship is twin-fraternal-passionate. It is a mix of the three. Those with esoteric training know that this card is about making a choice: generally The Lovers says, correct choice.

On June 12 we have a day with many exciting features, such as a very close conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus. This is an indicator that the marriage is a group experience or community experience of some kind; these people are social animals and there will be lots of other folks around.

Mercury has just made a square to Mars: this is a hot, sparky, mentally oriented relationship. That indeed is something to watch: not mentalizing all the sexual energy out of existence (Mars conjunct Vesta in Virgo). Either that, or keeping a bold interest in matters of an intellectual erotic or erotic-service orientation.

This is a rich chart with lots going on — and a New Moon close to sunrise in the Eastern U.S. If one is going to get married, it seems like a perfectly fine day to me. There are many indications of healing in this chart: of opening up to inner frontiers that need love and attention.

To this reader: I misplaced your email. You may contact me if you need more information.

By Len Wallick

“Imagination is more important than knowledge” - Albert Einstein

Today’s astrology continues the complimentary themes of individuation and integration started in yesterday’s blog. First, however, another review of the big picture. Saturn is backing up like a big old truck, bound for Virgo one more time to make its penultimate opposition with Uranus. Mars is backing up like a little red Corvette bound for its sextile aspect to Saturn and inconjunct Pluto, serving to balance and temper the new Moon.

Chiron and Neptune will exact their long conjunction on Feb. 17. On that same day, Venus will form a visible conjunction with Jupiter in Pisces. The New Moon on Valentine’s Day will herald the Asian Year of the Tiger and be part of a tight four-way conjunction — Sun, Moon, Chiron and Neptune. Lots of interesting stuff, especially when one considers the unusual but telling concurrent aspects.

Now to rejoin today, Tuesday the 8th. The Sun enters the 21st degree of Aquarius (about 21 days into that sign) and forms two sextiles with the dwarf planet Eris in Aries and the other with the trans-Neptunian object Quaoar in Sagittarius. [Eric adds: When the Sun makes contact with a planet, it picks up and amplifies the energy of the planet, and gives it to us in some tangible form. Here, we have a story about where identity crisis (Eris) meets family patterns (Quaoar). How does this look? Well, identity crisis may not seem comfortable, but it helps us break free of family conditioning. It is the questioning of that conditioning. Over and over again, we ignore the influence of families on our state of mind or the condition of our lives; therefore we often don't respond to the influence,]

Quaoar was discovered in 2002 and was assigned the minor planet number 50,000. This was not luck of the draw. This was a number that astronomers had been saving for when they found the large object they were looking for beyond Pluto. Quaoar is an amazing planet but it turns out astronomers could have waited. Four bigger ones have shown up since (though size means little in minor planet astrology — that is the point). Quaoar was named after the creator god of the Tongva people, the first Americans who inhabited the Los Angeles area for centuries without messing it up. It is a binary object: it’s really two planets in one.

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Today’s Oracle takes us back to the Aries weekly of July 2, 2004

Play your luck, but don’t push it. In life it is absolutely essential to take risks; failure is generally associated with the failure to dare. That being said, you’re about to encounter certain circumstances that cause you to veer one way or the other, and that will change the overall direction you’re headed. As the next few weeks progress, I suggest you take all measures to ensure that people you deal with, whether personally or professionally, are absolutely honest. But healthy is important as well. You need to be a careful observer of human nature for the foreseeable future, remembering that you’re responsible for acting on whatever you notice.

(The Daily Oracle is a random selection from one of 10,000 Eric Francis horoscopes. The Oracle is a divination tool like tarot cards, and also can be used to research any horoscope for the past 10 years. It is available to subscribers of Planet Waves Astrology News in all its working glory. This is a brilliant piece of programming combined with a full decade of Eric’s writing — when you have a question, it really works (as long as you’re sincere), and we know that you’ll love it. Sign up to discover how and why. Or enjoy one selection free here every day.)

This seemed like worthwhile public service message. Tomorrow we will show direct brain resuscitation.

This is in reply to a post right below Aunt Sarah.

Dear Indrani:

I’ve been thinking about your post all day. Well, really, a lot longer. I gave you top billing because so many people experience this situation you describe, or something like it. I think there are a few things going on. I began to notice this in my astrology practice years ago, and among my coolest, kindest male friends. People with, or getting, their act together could not find partners. I have also noticed that the more focused I became, the more successful, the less emotionally messed up, the less access I had; the more challenging it was to find a relationship. At many phases in my 20s and 30s I was a sex magnet. I don’t think it was merely that I was younger. For quite a while as a I grew and began to work stuff out, I seemed to have ever less access. So I’ve been watching this one for a while.

Zoe at the Grandmother Land.

The first question I had for you after reading your post, and I would appreciate if you would respond, is: what would constitute acceptable, good, or great sex for you? Would you please give me some examples of situations that would have you in a position where you would say yes? Can you describe what you want? You don’t need to give all the gushy details, but please describe circumstances that you either desire, or that would pass muster. This can be for the ‘just sex’ part, or some relational situation that would work.

Okay, now for my theory. I think that as we grow and build integrity, we install filters. These prevent certain people from getting through. The old circumstances that might have worked (or not worked so well, but resulted in sex) in the past no longer work.

You’re Hindu so you may think of it as related to karma: the more of your own karma you work off, the less tolerance you may have for those who have not, and whose stuff you don’t want to take on. A lot and I do mean a LOT of karma is potentially transmitted in sex, as everything from the potential for pregnancy to STDs to commitments to weird stuff on the nonphysical. Part of growth will, with any luck, be about filtering this out. Said in one sentence, the less integrity you have, the easier it is to find sex. But most of the stuff that’s going around is not the good stuff; it’s a kind of substitute.

Therefore the people with integrity who appreciate sex and are willing to give sex and not just get it, or withhold it, need to speak up; need to step up and GIVE what they have; what we have. I’ve long wondered about how everyone seems to want to get sex. Who thinks about the sex they want to share? Okay with a steady partner, yes, but what about outside that context?

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Palin’s speech to the Teabaggers was her boilerplate of nonsequiturs and cognitive disconnections, but in the interview that followed, she revealed her hand in a game for the presidency. We will be covering her astrology again shortly. This article is a political piece, written by Adele M. Stan and first published on Alternet. –efc

Sarah Palin appears to be running for president of the United States of America. You betcha.

In an interview with Chris Wallace, recorded on the eve of her Saturday night special of a speech to the Tea Party Nation convention in Nashville (and aired yesterday on Fox News Sunday), Palin didn’t quite confirm that speculation, but left the door wide open.

“Why wouldn’t you run for president?” Wallace asked.

“I would,” Palin replied. “I would if I believe that that is the right thing to do for our country and for the Palin family. Certainly, I would do so.”

Palin’s address to the Tea Partiers was standard for her: boilerplate in its arrangement of non sequiturs and cognitive disconnects. She railed against the Obama administration for ostensibly violating the 10th Amendment to the Constitution — the one that guarantees states’ rights — and then offered a health-care “fix” that violates that very amendment (allowing consumers to purchase policies across state lines, which basically intrudes upon the state’s right to regulate the insurance industry within the state). She charged the administration with trampling on the Constitution, while asserting that “foreign terrorists” arrested here aren’t entitled to constitutional rights. (Uh, actually, the Constitution confers those rights on anyone in the U.S. justice system — citizen or not.)

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Over the weekend, I published a series of sex oldies from prior years of Planet Waves. This was my Superbowl Sunday/Venus-Chiron-Neptune offering to the universe. A reader named Indrani replied with this letter as a public response, which I would offer for your consideration and gentle reply. Offered by me for resolution to Radharani. –efc

Radharani, beloved goddess of the universe.

Dear Eric,

What you write about sex is very interesting. I’m a Sydney (Australia)-based lawyer (yes, I see myself as a lawyer — saw a mini-series called ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ when I was seven and thought: “that man should have had someone to stand up for him…”) but I have had a very deep interest in sex from an early age (I wrote a master’s thesis on sex in contemporary Indian literature about six years ago).

I always found interesting the responses of men and women to me and as I got older (I’m 38 now), it is totally clear that these responses were largely sexual in nature (either wanting to have sex with me — I was an intellectually  precocious kid  — or (in the case of women), not wanting me anywhere near their husbands. I thought it was a ‘problem’ with me but over the last few years (going through my ‘emancipation’ and self-awakening, I began to realise that the problem is not with me — I’m actually very cool (ie very accepting) of sex as a normal and healthy form of self-expression and especially deeply-felt affection and plain-old garden variety intimacy.

As a communicative, self-expressive (and straight) woman, I am shocked at how difficult it is for me to actually get any sex! The sexual politics men (and this seems to be more to do with men than women) wrap themselves in is astonishing. It may be intimacy-based fear, and as you say, a direct problem stemming from religious hang-ups. Understandable if you’re from a Judeo-Christian-Islamic background, but what if you are a Hindu (like me) where sex is just as ordinary as the Sun rising (nothing ‘ordinary’ about either miracle, you’ll say — and you’ll be right)? Hindus worship Shiva and Kali – very sexual deities — the linga and yoni — the penis and vagina. The fundamental belief in our religion is that there are TWO deities, male and female and both are equally necessary (interestingly, there is also much literature dedicated to homosexuality — also a natural and healthy expression in Hinduism. It’s an animisitic religion largely — the plant and animal world is filled with examples of homo and other sexuality, so that may be why the ancient texts are so hip with it all).

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By Len Wallick

Welcome to Monday. It’s been an eventful weekend that included several astrological developments of significance. Mercury formed a sextile with Uranus, which hopefully meant fast thinking and not thinking too much. Jupiter formed a sextile to Pluto, which hopefully allowed a closer look at something mysterious and not a magnification of fear. Finally Venus conjoined Chiron and Neptune, preparing the ground for the New Moon / Asian New Year on Valentine’s Day.

All those events are still functional but in separation as we leave the weekend behind, flowing seamlessly into the aspects and transits to come.

Today begins with the Moon (in Sagittarius since late Saturday) conjoining the largest main belt asteroid, Ceres. Luna then goes on to close the day with a conjunction to the Galactic Center. The Sun comes off a square to the asteroid Pallas to receive a good morning sextile kiss from the Moon. Venus forms a sextile to the Galactic Center.

Collectively, all of this has the feel of what Eastern thought refers to as yin. It resonates with the aspects of mid-December 2009, before the Mercury retrograde, before the eclipse cycle, when the Sagittarius new Moon conjoined the Sun, Venus and the Galactic Center, a week before the winter solstice. The quality of yin has to do with being grounded while also being open and present to the forces of creation acting upon us, to be a part of the creative process and not just subject to it.

Now in its waning crescent phase, the Moon’s aspect to Ceres reminds us to attend to the subject of nourishment. When we are busy we all too often focus only on that which will keep us going for the short term. The coffee, the sweet snack and the power nap are no substitute for taking the time to have well-rounded meals and a good night’s sleep. As the Earth approaches the time of equinox, we need to prepare ourselves to be equal to the time. That means taking the time to take care of ourselves.

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Today’s Oracle takes us back to the Taurus weekly of July 11, 2008

You are reaching the end of a cycle of experience that, if nothing else, has served to put you in contact with your feelings. You may not like those feelings; you may feel you have a lot of work to do, and you may feel like you don’t want to do it. How many adjustments can one person withstand? Well, the more you do, the easier it is, and we both know that your first priority in this lifetime is learning some flexibility. At the moment, your main spiritual assignment is to stay in contact with your feelings. From what I observe, people — not just men, by the way — tend to shrinkwrap themselves, hide, self-medicate or use isolation and/or denial as ways to simply avoid feeling. You know you want to feel safe. None of these things will help you feel safe; fortunately there are a lot of other options.

(The Daily Oracle is a random selection from one of 10,000 Eric Francis horoscopes. The Oracle is a divination tool like tarot cards, and also can be used to research any horoscope for the past 10 years. It is available to subscribers of Planet Waves Astrology News in all its working glory. This is a brilliant piece of programming combined with a full decade of Eric’s writing — when you have a question, it really works (as long as you’re sincere), and we know that you’ll love it. Sign up to discover how and why. Or enjoy one selection free here every day.)