Hookay…it’s written. I’ve selected 11 unpublished photos and one very nice photo published a long time ago that everyone has probably forgotten, of Paris in the snow (these are for the 12 signs). The intro takes apart Saturn in Libra, gives some new spins on Pluto in Capricorn, talks about how the two meet in Novemner; and for the most part looks at this very curious total solar eclipse that is approaching. Our proofreader has gone through the whole thing and it’s all currently sitting in the Ukraine, where I belive Anatoly has finally gone to bed at about 6:30 am. I will leave the pre-publication price through the July 4 weekend and raise the price on Monday. If you’re a subscriber expect it in your inbox mid-day the 4th; we still have to go through a light production process; but we’re basically almost done. It’s been a LONG day. Good night and happy Bastille Day!

Dear Friend and Reader:

What a year it’s been. I’m sure you could think of a few things that haven’t happened, but not many. The past six months have taken us from one full-on burst of astrology to the next.

Eric Francis in Brussels.

I can’t offer you the three-week vacation you need, but I can offer some astrological insights about what the astrology of this year has really meant, and about what is on the radar.

So far we have experienced a high-intensity clustering that took us through Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces time; a Venus retrograde from Aries to Pisces; a Saturn-Uranus opposition and the Aquarius conjunction of Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune. I know a lot of you know exactly what I’m talking about, and if you don’t I’ll break it down in plan language for you.

As for what’s coming — a summer of eclipses, followed by Saturn changing signs shortly after.

This overview will be followed by a 12-sign horoscope available in three packages: Aries trough Virgo, Libra through Pisces and all 12 signs.

Thanks for the chance to do this — it’s great to have some extra time to consider the aspects and what they mean for all of us.

The links in purple above take you to order pages. Paypal is also available. To subscribe by phone, call (877) 453-8265.

I will end by saying this — we are in a very special time of history. You don’t need to look far to see this, but you do need to take in what your eyes and ears are telling you. And this is only the beginning. I have a feeling the most interesting years of begin an astrologer are before me. It’s good to be with you.

Yours & truly,

Scientific American reports:

Michael Jackson probably wasn’t a pedophile—at least, not in the strict, biological sense of the word. It’s a morally loaded term, pedophile, that has become synonymous with the very basest of evils. (In fact it’s hard to even say it aloud without cringing, isn’t it?) But according to sex researchers, it’s also a grossly misused term. If Jackson did fall outside the norm in his “erotic age orientation”—and we may never know if he did—he was almost certainly what’s called a hebephile, a newly proposed diagnostic classification in which people display a sexual preference for children at the cusp of puberty, between the ages of, roughly, 11 to 14 years of age…Based on this classification scheme of erotic age orientations, even the world’s best-known fictitious “pedophile,” Humbert Humbert from Nabokov’s masterpiece, Lolita, would more properly be considered a hebephile.

Photo by Eric Francis / Book of Blue.

Let’s switch countries for a moment, as I dive through old photo files. I spent a lot of time taking pictures in the Netherlands, in particular, in Holland. It was the place that I would go to feel like I was at home in Europe; the place that most closely matched my temperament and my hobbies. I started with a couple of trips to Amsterdam, which is a good place to stretch out your mind, then I branched out to The Hague, Utrecht and many small towns, which I would discover getting off the train in random places. This photo was taken on my second trip to Amsterdam, in the spring of 2005. The women, who apparently work for the same company, are playing a work-related scavenger hunt game on a Saturday afternoon in the center of the city. It’s one of my favorite street photos ever. The woman on the right is named Dimitra; it’s something about the look in her eyes.

Editor’s Note: This article is from Next World Stories, the 2009 annual edition of Planet Waves. We will be posting these regularly, and you’ll be able to identify them by the yellow icon you see below. They are written by a writing team consisting of Jordan Merrell and Carol van Strum, both in Oregon. They are fictional satires; when you see that yellow icon, you’re reading science fiction, not a real news article. — efc

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Dee Dee Ann Barstow – Long Life Pharmaceuticals

The Social Satisfaction Chip (SSC) has finally been approved as an option for public use. Developed originally to conform the mentally ill into socially functional entities, the SSC has now been approved by the Food & Drug Administration for use in maintenance and repair of families and love lives.

For decades, the SSC was shrouded in controversy and conspiracy theories, although claims of alien abduction were not regarded with much credibility. Some victims claimed a chip had been implanted in them in an attempt to brainwash or control their minds. Government denials merely intensified the widespread belief in such a conspiracy, although the government has seemed as surprised as anyone else by increased UFO sightings.

The most controversial use of an implanted behavior modification chip, however, was its well-publicized use in control of unrehabilitatable criminal offenders. A major objection to the Criminal Rehabilitation Chip (CRC) was that individuals programmed to avoid violence and to obey all laws were thus rendered ineligible for military or mercenary service as well as politics, thus severely limiting career options. The chip developed for this use was undetectable without a special scanning device, to prevent unauthorized removal, and courts were liberal in allowing implantation without the knowledge or consent of the patient.

Unfortunately, the skyrocketing sales of three wildly popular electronic toys imported from China and Uraguay – the best-selling Vampire Finder and companion Zombie Detector, and at least one programmable Christmas tree topper – turned out to be due, in part, to their electromagnetic frequencies, which permanently de-activated the Criminal Rehabilitation Chips when used within twenty feet of the implanted person. The number of habitual criminals released with such implants and subsequently deprogrammed will never be known.

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Good morning lovelies,

I won’t be blogging today, at least not till later — I am finishing the midyear horoscope report, which looks in detail at our summer of eclipses, the sign change of Saturn into Libra and the Saturn-Pluto square that pretty much defines the last few months of the year.

Today we will have plenty of writing by other Planet Waves writers, including a selection from Next World Stories — and later in the day, a few more photos from Europe. (For Book of Blue readers, I’ve written a new installment in my compersion series, which for the first time recasts compersion as something associated with the opposite of guilt rather than of jealousy. I think this is a discovery.)

The Moon is in mid-Scorpio, about to square the triple conjunction (it’s currently precisely square Nessus) and about to oppose Venus and Mars overnight tonight. Lots is written about that alignment that in several articles below.

Please stay tuned.

Eric Francis

Oft times nothing profits more Than self-esteem, grounded on just and right Well manag’d.
– John Milton, Paradise Lost; 1667

Dear Friend and Reader:

When we look back honestly on this phase of history, we’ll see that one of the most profound issues of our day is a pandemic-scale crisis of self-esteem. We don’t need to look far for the manifestations of this, or for the causes. They surround us so completely that we barely notice them; or if we do, we assume they are an indelible part of existence. They are built into our relationships, which are often designed as shelter from the storm, but which don’t usually work.

Photo by Eric Francis / Book of Blue.

As Brian, my editor at Chronogram magazine put it when I ran this article idea past him, he’s noticing this most in people feeling like they are going insane because the world doesn’t appreciate who they are or what they have to offer. This is particularly strange in a world that has nothing but ever-increasing needs; in theory we should all be in greater demand.

To describe something as a crisis of self-esteem is to use a byword covering a great many potential situations. Ultimately they all come back to how we feel about ourselves and our existence. Do we feel good about who we are? On a deeper level, do we consciously notice our existence? Do we feel like we have a right to exist?

We may not be so articulate with ourselves. Usually, we get the data in emotional form. If we’re struggling, it may arrive as anything from depression (literally, the sense of being pressed down) to the challenges of adapting in a world that is not the same place from hour to hour. Adapting takes energy and being in a constant process of adjustment can consume nearly all of our energy.

But there is something else unique to our time in history that I think may hold the key: as a society and often as individuals, we live as if we have no responsibility to anyone or anything; not ourselves, not our society, not the world. I’ll give you an example. There is a large swath of society that feels like it’s entitled to do absolutely anything at all. There is a larger swath that allows them to get away with it.

It’s not just how we feel about ourselves that is suffering, but rather how we feel about very nearly everything. And in a word, that would be cynical. Cynical is another way of saying having no respect. Another way is suggesting that we live in a time of ethical bankruptcy, which is taking a personal toll in the form of a great many people feeling worthless. It should come as no surprise that most have done very little to earn that sense of worth from themselves.

Let’s get a definition of esteem up on the blackboard. According to Etymology Online, esteem means to estimate the value of something. The word dates to 1450. It was initially used the same way we currently use the word estimate, so that a conscious evaluation is implied, not simply a notion or a quality. The term self-esteem is neutral: it can represent a high value, a low one or something in between, pending evaluation. There is an accounting involved; and that implies accountability. This is precisely the opposite of getting away with anything you can, or letting others get away with anything.

As for self-esteem, Oxford English Dictionary defines it, perhaps too simply, as “a favorable appreciation or opinion of oneself,” and one of the first to apply the term was John Milton. The term was popularized by phrenology (a kind of pseudo-science involving reading bumps on the head), which assigned it a bump in the early 19th century.

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