Dear Friend and Reader:

I’d like to offer a few comments about yesterday’s Mercury square Neptune. This is a challenging aspect, as many people experienced. Yesterday, it was connected to the North Node of the Moon (Neptune on the North Node like a big, foggy headlamp) and Mercury exactly square the Nodes. Anything exactly square the nodes can act like a tipping point or factor.

Then the Moon itself swept through the arrangement, making an exact occultation to Neptune (like an eclipse), listing the ship and sending the feeling through our collective emotional bodies with a surge. A number of other planets and asteroids were in the dance — Mars, for instance, in Cancer (hence connected to the Moon). So if you thought yesterday was a strange day, there you have it. I am not one who gets up every morning and studies Raphael’s Ephemeris, which is where I would have seen the Moon-Neptune occultation, but this is good incentive to. However, if you live by the ephemeris like that, you risk going insane, and I do mean it.

On its own, Mercury square Neptune is often about self-deception. Think of a square as a structure that contains energy. Mercury and Neptune in this position, together in a natal chart, have been described as signifying the consummate liar. I don’t think any aspect automatically predisposes us to having or lacking integrity, but this one seems to create a world within one’s own awareness that functions with little regard for what exists outside one’s inner sense of reality. Notably, it may not be experienced as inner — it may be peered through like a pair of binoculars that selectively magnify certain aspects of life. This can flush things out of the pipes; usually, it keeps them in, or creates a sufficient distortion to miss the big picture.

A closed psychic ecosystem such as this is the perfect setup for dishonesty, because self-deception is almost always the root of any lie. This, in turn, is an interesting model of how we process information in a competitive market environment; there is so much competition for our mental capacity that we have to be selective. So much of what we might discover is unpleasant that we have incentive to be so. If we allow in outside evidence, that pierces the inner veil and compels a reality check: not always so popular. Or it creates an unusually potent obsession with seeking and finding the truth, even the Truth. I know someone with this aspect natally who does such things as (in her own words) take a God Squad down to Mexico to do multiple lifetime healing work. She certainly believes it and that makes it believable.

Joseph Campbell had Mercury square Neptune and was able to decode humanity’s complex relationship with myth. Bob Dylan has this aspect; he has been viewed as a prophet, a modern Shakespeare and the master of the poison pen letter. Interestingly, Jim Morrison also had this aspect. Sean Penn does as well, and he is an example of someone regarded with extremely high integrity; when I think of him I think of Dead Man Walking, the film that blew the whistle on the death penalty.

The thing to be cautious of in the charts of famous people is that they always put their resources to work in ways that get unusual results. That is why they are famous; why we can recite their ideas, lyrics and hum their music. I have no idea what it’s like to talk to or live with any of the guys I mentioned. One thing is for sure, they moved a lot of energy and they got results.

In my personal dealings I can tell you this aspect is a bit more challenging than putting Light My Fire on iTunes. Whether we noticed it or not, we all lived through it (and it’s still pretty close). There can be a disregard for truth, or lack of concern for the truth, that would be stunning, except usually you were already anesthetized when the stun hit. Sometimes it seems absolutely sincere to you or to others. Watch this aspect carefully. Pay attention to what you sign and check the claims of others carefully for factual veracity, significance and what they might be cloaking, inadvertently or not.

Yesterday in the news, we saw two uproars that fit this description: the exciting sequel in the Obama’s pastor furor, and one that (naturally) I think is far more interesting — the absurd fuss over Annie Leibovitz’s photo of Hannah Montana star Miley Cyrus.

Mercury is about vectors of thought in any form, from language to a radio tower. Neptune is about images, film, illusion, dreams, fantasies and drug-induced experiences. It has a lot to do with photography, which functions with a touch of all of these themes. Mercury coming in for a square felt like an airplane landing on the water with its gear down. The New York Post and I gather plenty of other news outlets went wild with this non-story about a 15-year-old star photographed by portrait master Leibovitz with her shoulder and part of her back exposed.

It is being characterized as veritable kiddie porn; her family is ‘mortified’; though you can hear the laughter as the Magic Kingdom, home of her billion dollar entertainment empire, goes through its appearances of moral spasms of shock and outrage. Miley, for those unhip as myself who needed to Wiki her, plays a normal girl who moonlights as a rock star. Leave it to Disney to create a virgin rocker. Then she has her portrait done and the war in Iraq evaporates.

The Miley scandal is not a relevant version of the truth: the episode, in addition to sending up a smoke screen, is one vast public relations boon for Disney, who rather than attempting to purify its magnificent gleam is decorating its enterprises with a few tons of free ink. And do we think the Vanity Fair production manager called the print plant yesterday ordering up a few hundred thousand more copies for good measure?

One huge lie being propagated, regardless of who profits, is that a teenage young adults are asexual, or that it’s somehow inappropriate to represent them as sexual even though it’s done all the time. This is like freebasing denial, particularly if we care enough to help them stay healthy and unpregnant. Go ahead, teach them abstinence, then watch what happens in the onslaught of hormones. It seems like we have projected so much sexuality onto young people, and fetishized the appearances of youth, that we now feel a need as a culture to strip it off with a sandblaster.

Furthermore, the world seems to have a need for Miley not to grow up. To me this is the psychic, media-driven version of that Austrian guy who locked his daughter in the basement, taking total possession of her. Here, the world seems to need to lock Miley in the basement and never allow her to become Destiny Hope Cyrus, the mature woman.

Scandals are scams. They are never what they are about. Deeper down they are always about repression. If there is a grain of truth to them, it’s usually employed to seed the greater lie. If you look closely enough, or look in the opposite direction (perhaps within), sometimes you can see a little gleam of light.

PS. I just went down for coffee and the Sally Brompton horoscope and encountered an explanation of just what is going on with Miley, courtesy of the profound social criticism of the New York Post, my third favorite newspaper. To wit, Todd Venezia writes, “The young Cyrus and photo diva Leibovitz have created an international firestorm with Vanity Fair pics showing the all-American Tennessee girl with a bare back, turgid lips and suggestively tussled hair — all while being wrapped in nothing more than a piece of cloth.”

Have I got a piece of cloth for you, guys: it’s called a burka.

Today’s Aspects: Wednesday 30 April 2008

Venus (29+ Aries) trine Juno (29+ Sagittarius Rx)
Amor (0+ Taurus) trine Pluto (0+ Capricorn Rx)
Ceres (12+ Gemini) quincunx Hidalgo (12+ Scorpio Rx)
Neptune (24+ Aquarius) square Admetos (24+ Taurus) - Near Miss Only
Amor (1+ Taurus) quincunx M87 (1+ Libra)
Atlantis (16+ Libra Rx) semisquare Saturn (1+ Virgo Rx)
Venus enters Taurus (direct)
Mercury (26+ Taurus) septile Varuna (17+ Cancer)
Sisyphus (14+ Libra Rx) trine Nessus (14+ Aquarius)
Venus (0+ Taurus) quincunx Arachne (0+ Libra Rx)
Sun (10+ Taurus) quintile Apollo (22+ Cancer)
Psyche (20+ Scorpio Rx) opposite Sedna (20+ Taurus)

Oracle takes us back to Dec. 12, 2005 - Gemini - monthly

I don’t know if people have been accusing you of being stubborn lately, but these days persistence is good for you. A series of recent personal developments finally seems to have got you sorted out in terms of keeping both twins focused on one goal. You now have a kind of miraculous moment of diplomacy coming, where you can basically convince anyone of anything. The only thing that could stop you is if you persuade yourself that certain people who are friends are really something else. They are not; it’s just a little touch of mild paranoia bugging you.

Dear Friend and Reader:

The following just showed up in my inbox, about one of today’s aspects. I am honored to yield the microphone to Genevieve Salerno. She writes:

These days at the 9 to 5 have begun to pass by without any names. Monday and Thursday, Friday and Wednesday could all be the same. I drove home in the rain after a seven hour stint in a little office that has about as much natural light in it as I have passion for the job. Don’t get me wrong, I get along well with the people there. I have made friends and have gotten a chance to meet teachers of many skills. There is a lot of laughter in my office, a blessing that I find rare when I look into the faces of say…people who work at banks and Price Chopper. But we all do what we must do. I remember the times I used to call up my mother with the mind to find a sympathetic ear, and got only: “Well that’s just what you do.”

And the frustration I felt upon hearing those words had a face, and a mind of its own. It had a soul, and a pair of hands to execute the works that its imagination brewed from deep underneath the Shell of Adulthood that has been ossifying for many years now. Whoever she is, lurking deep within me, she is the feeling that today’s aspect nurtures. The blissful side of me, the procreative side of me. She is Eros.

It seems that as soon as I graduated college and stepped into the world with a new goal to survive on my own, I could not help but follow the formula of all those people that have gone before me. I got a new pair of shoes, a car insurance bill, a cat, and a job to exchange money for all of the aforementioned. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t specifically passionate about what I did, as long as it gave me enough money to provide a space for me and the cat, good enough food, gas to travel with, and the occasional surplus for a bottle of Jack. When I wanted to write, or paint, or dream, I had about four and a half hours after work to do that, before I could retire for a proper amount of rest to start the whole thing over again.

And then years passed. My Eros found the channels by which to inspire me more crowded by the echoes of other desires, more pertinent, mundane desires, until I could only trace her by the rumblings I felt as though they were workings deep within the Earth; and not myself. There was one time I felt that shudder so completely, that it drove me to pick up my jacket and walk out of a 40 hour a week gig at a switchboard. I was about 5 hours into my first shift. I never returned, and I never answered the phone when they called me.

Why is it that we make the trade between living our lives creatively, and striving to create a “product”? At what point do we make that trade, where it is no longer acceptable to do nothing? Where dreaming is a waste of time and even the word “vacation” stresses us out because it means more work, more striving, for a better way to use our time?

The expansive, creative quality of Jupiter is that jolt of rebelliousness from our regimented schedules. It is a call to the Lord and Lady residing in each of us, to come forward without any fanfare and to celebrate the state of mind that is Eros; the Urge and the Sensation. Only through being completely open to our desires can we begin to understand their wisdom. For some reason, our culture has made it very hard to do this. “If you don’t swipe a card to get it,” I remember a friend saying, “then it’s viewed as suspicious in our culture.”

And that’s what my mother was talking about when she said, “You can’t get anywhere in this world without money.”

I know this is just not the truth. In times of defiance I draw strength from where Eros dwells. I don’t desire to work in an office for the rest of my life. I want to be a weaver, I want to drink up textures and colors all day long. I want to spend the sunlight hours watching things grow. I want to let Universe come through my body and throat in the form of sensuality and poetry. I am going to leave this place, and knowing with certainty that it will end; I adore it for its transience.

Today’s aspect reflects what I feel in a Cosmic sense: Jupiter and Eros united in element Earth invites us to take a step back from the world of work, stress, struggle; and just relax. Behold the grand scheme of things that is the expansion of pleasure.

Its hard to say that this feeling is still pure when looking at our current age. Somewhere along the line the baddies took the good idea, and twisted it like Melkor did to the Elves when he formed the Orcs. But the bliss of life, the joy of encountering the world of the flesh and the senses is still there, clear as youth; waiting to be disrobed.

Tuesday 29 April 2008

Mars (24+ Cancer) sextile Admetos (24+ Taurus)
Amor (0+ Taurus) quincunx Arachne (0+ Libra Rx)
Mars (24+ Cancer) sesquiquadrate Pholus (9+ Sagittarius Rx)
Juno (29+ Sagittarius Rx) septile Chiron (20+ Aquarius)
Eros (22+ Taurus) trine Jupiter (22+ Capricorn)
Pandora (17+ Scorpio Rx) trine Varuna (17+ Cancer)
Sun (9+ Taurus) quincunx Pholus (9+ Sagittarius Rx)
Juno (29+ Sagittarius Rx) septile Chariklo (8+ Scorpio Rx) - Near Miss Only
Mercury (24+ Taurus) square Neptune (24+ Aquarius)
Ceres (12 Gemini) quintile Aries Point (0 Aries)
Eros (22+ Taurus) sextile Apollo (22+ Cancer)
Sisyphus (14+ Libra Rx) quintile Galactic Center (26+ Sagittarius)
Apollo (22+ Cancer) square 1992 QB1 (22+ Aries)
Mercury (24+ Taurus) conjunct Admetos (24+ Taurus)
Venus (29+ Aries) sesquiquadrate Great Attractor (14+ Sagittarius)
Mercury (24+ Taurus) sextile Mars (24+ Cancer)
Venus (29+ Aries) sesquiquadrate Ixion (14+ Sagittarius Rx)
Vesta (4+ Aries) trine Hylonome (4+ Sagittarius Rx)

The Oracle takes us back to June 2005 Virgo monthly for Flaunt magazine

More than you imagine turns this month on who you consider your friends to be. Don’t be afraid to use the word with caution; don’t be afraid to evaluate the people you meet extremely carefully. It all really comes down to this: do they help you be who you are, or do they hinder you? Once you know, act accordingly.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Mercury is conjunct Eros today. I take this as a personal invitation from the cosmos to continue my discussion of astrology and sexuality. True, my kitchen table is piled high with these invitations. But this is a good one.

Where you see Mercury, you can fill in the verb ‘communicate’, ‘express’, ‘idea’ or ‘message’. What is being expressed will be modified or described by the sign, the aspects and if you are using a natal or horary chart, the house involved. Today Mercury is exactly conjunct Eros, so presumably we have some form of a message of love or erotic feeling. Note, the god Eros is the root of the word ‘erotic’. So highly did the Greeks value this concept that they assigned it a deity. You may say that everything in Greek myth gets a deity, and you would be right — they lived in a different world than we did; a world that was worthy of respect and awareness.

However, Eros is not just one of the Gods. Eros is one of the prime creation deities, along with Gaia. So with Eros we are on another level entirely, than, say, the Olympian gods and goddesses. (The name Eros should be given to a trans-Neptunian object in the Kuiper Belt, but because it’s assigned to an asteroid, it cannot be.)

Martha Lang-Wescott is one of the modern masters of asteroid delineations. I respect her work deeply and I tend to use her ideas as a solid starting point for the asteroids. (For centaurs, I depend on the work of Melanie Reinhart, Juan Revilla and Phil Sedgwick, who I’ll introduce properly on other days.) I also have a friend in Wales whose insight is so clear that she makes this rather highly competent lot look like the three blind mice.

Of the themes of Eros, Martha says: Sexuality; reproductive organs; the heart & cardiac system; the history, experience and behavioral repertoire of eroticism; joie de vivre; what “turns you on;” the Will to Live (the “passion” for life.)

People who wonder why they need to consider sex more fully, investigate their hangups and commit to letting go of them; or who want to live with greater gusto, might well consider how all these things are wrapped up in one idea: Eros. Even astrology, as defined by a careful, even prudent astrologer, is connected with the Will to Live and the joy of life. We all know this. Why do we shun it? Are we ashamed not just of sex, but to live fully? Maybe we’re being influenced by something. Maybe it’s the Church of the Marketing Culture, which says “be ashamed of your body so you buy our products.” If you catch yourself feeling that one, tap your knuckle three times and say, “I don’t need that.”

Mercury is conjunct this point in Taurus today. Taurus is the sign of the season of Beltane, where we are right now. Taurus and Beltane connect the ideas of eroticism and the flow of resources; access to our own resources; and feeling good enough about who we are to enjoy life and pleasure. The astrological cue is to express yourself on what in this subject area is important to you. If you have a lover or partner, say clearly what you like and see if that gets the energy moving in a new way.

If you are afraid to do so, perhaps consider all the things you have not said, and use that as a measure of your intimacy. We are in an unusually potent time for concealing our truth as a way of supporting the structure of a relationship. If this seems like a virtue, it’s in the short run. The longterm cost is incalculable. Eventually, lies , secrets and silence smother passion and the joy of living. As William Pennell Rock said on one of the most searched pages on Planet Waves, “Only the truth is erotic.”

* * *

Saturday, I went to the Beltane celebration at the Center for Symbolic Studies in Tillson. This is an annual event hosted by Robin and Steve Larsen, perhaps best known outside the local area for their book A Fire in the Mind, the biography of Joseph Campbell. This was my first opportunity to go in many years. I’ve been away in Europe for five of the last 10 Beltanes, and spent most of the rest of the time on the West Coast and in Florida.

I’ll post pictures from the event on the cover for the next few days, to give you the feeling. This was Beltane for the whole family. There was a pageant with droves of young people (between five and maybe 16) acting, singing and dancing the drama of the change of seasons (organized by the old-timers of my generation). The wee ones danced the May Pole (see today’s cover) and there was a kind of prancing pony show in a mini-Stonehenge that has been constructed on the property. At night we had a fire ritual without the fire (forest too dry to risk that) and then drumming well into the night. I drummed for the first time in years. it’s one of my passions, and it’s part of my Plan For More, Better Sex.

But what I must congratulate the Larsens on is making Beltane normal. It isn’t even easy to put together a Beltane celebration among the Pagans and pseudo-Pagans in your community. I tried on the West Coast, in Washington, and to my shock, nobody was even interested. Here, in sophisticated rednecky upstate New York, we have this celebration where everyone brings their kids and the girls are all wearing little floral wreaths and the May Pole is danced (which weaves the cosmic vulva [the ribbons] around the cosmic cock [the pole].)

In the world of liberating the sensibilities that defined humanity before Constantine, St. Peter and all those popes, what is missing is some sense that these old rituals are normal. Normal, as in Christmas, softball or a barbecue. With the worldly wisdom I have gained from a decade of traveling and living in different parts of the world, I returned to where I started and saw it as someplace new.

Here are today’s aspects, Note Mercury sextile Uranus and trine Jupiter, and Pallas conjunct Eris.

Have a great day. If you love Planet Waves, please sign up.

Yours & truly,

Monday 28 April 2008

Pallas (20+ Aries) quincunx Psyche (20+ Scorpio Rx)
Mercury (21+ Taurus) conjunct Eros (21+ Taurus)
Mercury (21+ Taurus) sextile Uranus (21+ Pisces)
Venus (26+ Aries) trine Galactic Center (26+ Sagittarius)
Eros (21+ Taurus) sextile Uranus (21+ Pisces)
Mercury (21+ Taurus) septile Aries Point (0+ Aries)
Sun (8+ Taurus) opposite Chariklo (8+ Scorpio Rx)
Pallas (21+ Aries) quintile Kronos (3+ Cancer)
Eros (21+ Taurus) septile Aries Point (0+ Aries)
Apollo (22+ Cancer) opposite Jupiter (22+ Capricorn)
Vesta (4+ Aries) quintile Jupiter (22+ Capricorn)
Mars (24+ Cancer) quincunx Neptune (24+ Aquarius)
Mercury (22+ Taurus) trine Jupiter (22+ Capricorn)
Mercury (22+ Taurus) sextile Apollo (22+ Cancer)
Pallas (21+ Aries) conjunct Eris (21+ Aries)
Venus (27+ Aries) trine Orcus (27+ Leo Rx)

Today’s Oracle takes us to Jan. 24, 2002, Aquarius - Weekly

Since Mercury went retrograde in Aquarius I’ve been having little problems with contained water: leaks, pH problems in my fish tank spilling things and so forth. It seems like the water bearer is reminding me of her existence. How are you doing in this regard? Are you sufficiently hydrated both physically and emotionally? If you want to feel a lot better for relatively little work, drink more water than you think you need, get your body into water and near a lot of water if you can. Step two would be plugging any leaks that you’ve noticed on the emotional level just by getting clear with the people around you — a fine way to start the year or better to define it.