Hello — I am traveling and may be updating a little late on Monday. –efc 

Here is a fun one. I am not a big fan of poultergeists, however. If you have one in your house, there may be a struggling child — and you had best move them out of the building. I’m not sure what to make of them in an old police station, but there are a lot of possibilities.

Good Morning & Shabbat Shalom,

As of Saturday morning, we’re hours from the Aries New Moon. To start with, our Moonwatcher Kirsti Melto has issued a new edition of Lunations. I often co-write the piece with her; our collaboration this time was writer-editor. In it she looks closely at the New Moon chart, focusing on the minor planets. Though you may not have heard of many that she has mentioned, you can find out about many of them on Planet Waves. Sixteen are listed in Small World Stories (our latest annual edition and one home of the monthly horoscope) and many are on the free side of our website. Try googling the name of the body + the words Planet Waves and see what comes up.

Kirsti writes today, “In mythology Apollo is a Sun god. He represents harmony, order and reason, while Dionysus, god of wine, represents ecstasy and disorder. The Greeks considered the two gods like brothers, and while Apollo spent his winter months in Hyperborea, a mythical land in the distant north, he left the oracle at Delphi to Dionysus in the meanwhile. Apollo was said to return at the beginning of spring.”

The other night, confronted with some more of society’s astonishing degree of sexual repression, I was doing some decoding of that situation and I observed that it has to do with how precariously the lives of so many people are stacked right now. There is the feeling that if we let go into ecstasy (and Dionysus counts for sexual because he is symbolized by erect cocks which decorated his temples like huge coat-hooks) our whole house of cards will collapse.

In a moment of stunned revelation, I wrote to my mentor Joe:

SEX IS DESTABILIZING TO THE FRAGILE STATE OF MIND THE PLANET IS IN NOW

- OR SO WE FEAR

In a sense it is absolutely destabilizing - it pops us through the dead games and into the moment.

Dead games are what Fritz Perls called neurosis — mental patterns we live out again and again, usually unconsciously but not always, and we use those patterns to stay stuck, isolated and safe from being spontaneous and free with one another. Thus, life “stays the same” in a dynamic and everchanging world — not a good idea.

Though it seems like a rather simple statement, the new beginnings thing about Aries and the Aries Moon is as accurate as we allow it to be. This week I’ve been working on Mars Calling, the first book project we’ve put our energy to here at Planet Waves, and we’ve begun with with Aries. For the past several days, I’ve been assembling everything that we’ve collected and learned about Aries, and the Sun and Moon in this sign, and I’m stunned at how accurate the mythologies around this sign are are.

The number of people who came up in our research who blew a hole into the future is truly impressive. Not just the number, but the significance of the contributions is on a truly cosmic scale. My co-writer Paloma Todd researched the Sun and with the help of a research assistant, I have been working on the Moon (we “switched genders” for the purposes of the project, with me handling the lunar/intuitive and she handling the solar/expressive).

With the Sun, names like Leonardo da Vinci and Jacques Brel come up: people whose energy and originality are still unparalleled; whose ideas we still use. Many of the most noted writers of the 20th century are Aries: Samuel Beckett and Tennessee Williams among them. With the Moon, the shocking discovery is that both Bill Gates (co-founder of Microsoft) and Steve Jobs (co-founder of Apple) not only both have an Aries Moon, they have it within one degree, and both are conjunct Eris. Eris is in Aries for a stretch of about 120 years, circa 1920 to 2040.

So this has prompted me to open a new chapter in my delineation of Eris as well, which is a strong influence on Aries and all things Aries. I’ll be finishing the draft of the chapter by tonight, with any luck at all, and we have planned a production night for Tuesday with distribution Tuesday. Sales of this product have, happily, been very strong.

Two years ago we did a marketing survey and we asked you what you wanted: the answer was more diverse products, so that is what we have been doing. It has been a learning process, and I am one of these people who can’t keep the same routine for more than a couple of months — I need constant change of my work pattern and work space to maintain my level of creative output. This whole process has been incredibly stimulating (if challenging), with some great rewards. For example, the Valentine’s Day “essay” turned into a book draft called It’s Not About Sex, its About Self.

Before that — with a lot and I do mean a lot of help — Small World Stories was developed into the draft for a minor planet book, the first of its kind. Here is a little sample, apropos of Aries — the Eris page from our Planet Wiki project.

I’ll comment on just one of the minor planet aspects today — Mercury opposite Arachne. You are no doubt familiar with Mercury, the planet of mind, ideas, communication and tricksterish unpredictability (Mercury did a lot of the work of Uranus before Uranus was discovered in March 1781).

Arachne is the archetype of the weaver-storyteller-conspirator. She is spider medicine; she is the one who spins the tale. In a word, spider is the energy of creativity.

Where you see Arachne, you can be pretty sure that a conspiracy of some kind is afoot, and I don’t mean that just in the “Watergate” sense of the word but in the sense that all things and all people are interconnected.

We may play games pretending that those connections to not exist, but life is nothing of the sort. We may pretend that we do not spin the tale of our own lives, but it ain’t that way. Look for the connections and listen to the stories that other people tell you. They each contain part of your story. If Aries is about ME then there is an interesting mirror effect when you flip that one rune over and convert it to WE.

Also of note, Asbolus (the fourth centaur planet) changes signs, something it does not do often. It takes about 76.5 years to orbit our Sun one time. Interestingly, today, April 5, is the 13th discovery anniversary of this little planet — and a meaningful one it is. In Taurus, Asbolus represents some persistence on the level of both material needs and of getting our emotional needs met.

I am figuring out that one of the reasons so many of us have difficulty with that is we don’t bother. Fear has become the global religion, and fear is the great influence not to try, not to live today any differently than yesterday and moreover, the fear to feel. Despite all that is happening in the world, and all the influences we are under to be these particular ways and crawl under a rock and stay there for a while, the option to feel always remains open.

And Aries says: be brave and do something different. This would count.

So come on baby light my fire.

Minor Planet Aspects are courtesy of Serennu.

Saturday, 05 April 2008

Jupiter (20+ Capricorn) semisquare Hylonome (5+ Sagittarius Rx)
Asbolus enters Taurus (direct)
Venus (28+ Pisces) septile Sedna (20+ Taurus)
Arachne (4+ Libra Rx) sesquiquadrate Chiron (19+ Aquarius)
Atlantis (23+ Libra Rx) quincunx Vesta (23+ Pisces)
Mercury (4+ Aries) opposite Arachne (4+ Libra Rx)
Mercury (4+ Aries) semisquare Chiron (19+ Aquarius)
Venus (28+ Pisces) semisquare Nessus (13+ Aquarius)
Eros (2+ Taurus) sextile Kronos (2+ Cancer)
Mercury (5+ Aries) semisquare Sedna (20+ Taurus)
Logos (20+ Virgo Rx) trine Sedna (20+ Taurus)
Venus (29+ Pisces) square Juno (29+ Sagittarius)
Mercury (5+ Aries) septile Nessus (13+ Aquarius)
Mercury (5+ Aries) trine Hylonome (5+ Sagittarius Rx)
Amor (21+ Aries) quincunx Pandora (21+ Scorpio Rx)

Saturday Oracle - Jul 01, 2005 - Aquarius - Weekly

You are breaking free finally and at long last. Um free from what though? That IS the question. And you might want to answer that question so you don’t get yourself caught up in whatever held you down before. In actual fact you have just as much responsibility on your shoulders. What you’re doing differently is thinking of it differently. Correct? And if that alone is responsible for shifting your entire sense of burden and allowing you the feeling that this is your life which you are free to live then for the love of Venus — learn to think differently.

Note to subscribers — actually in true Aries fashion, I jumped the gun: tomorrow is the Aries New Moon. Check here for additional details and a link to Kirsti Melto’s Lunations blog on the event. –efc

Updata: It is Friday night and I am chilling. Not writing — except for this.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Today would be the 104th birthday of Aunt Josie. That is Mrs. Josephine Sharp, nee Nicastro, my Godmother, Great Aunt and writing benefactor. Her birthday was 04/04/04.

In recent years, a reality or realization has been gradually dawning on me, which is that, based on a diversity of factors, I was at risk for serious mental illness in my 20s, when she was the most present in my adult life. (She and her husband Howard did a lot of babysitting for me and my brother as well.)

What Aunt Josie gave me and, in effect, guaranteed me, was the means to express myself through that crucial time in the life of some young adults when psychosis either forms, or heals. I am aware that in her gifts and support (economic and emotional, through some much earlier projects, and then, at the time I transitioned into being an astrologer), in effect she saved my life.

Coming from a family with a presence of mental illness, I dread to think what could have happened to me had I been frustrated in silence during those times, raging with passion and awareness but unable to fight for justice. I don’t know, perhaps I would have figured out a way, but I assure you I was not as strong then, and today I believe her help tipped the balance in a positive direction.

I was back in Brooklyn a couple of months ago, in my old neighborhood (Marine Park) and felt a deep longing to visit her and my Grandma Mary as if they were both alive. I recognized that this is part of why it was always difficult for me to go back to Brooklyn.

Anyway, Aunt Josie would be 104 today. (Today is also the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Josie was Aries with a Scorpio Moon. As an elderly woman, she carried the most beautiful aura of compassion, and always found something to laugh about. As a younger woman, she was a gorgeous, sexy, busty and unassuming Sicilian woman. Those who knew her very well would be treated to her wry, biting assessments of certain individuals, and also to her eminently Christian forgiveness of them.

She met and then fell for my Uncle Howard, who must have stood six feet four and looked like a giant American Indian, at a YMCA sing-along. (He was part Cherokee.)

She and Howard also raised my dad in some respects (Josie was my father’s mom’s sister). In the 1940s and 1950s Howard, Josie and my father Joe took numerous car trips to many places, when the automobile was still a thing of guaranteed adventure. They went places like the Jersey shore, which still feels exotic to me to this day. (They took trips to many other states along the Eastern Seaboard as well, back when you went someplace and visited everyplace else along the way, too.)

So it is interesting that the person who became my Godmother knew my father intimately growing up; she was, perhaps, the only person who knew both of us so well. She was also very good friends with my mother, and vicariously I recently got this bit of advice about life and investing in the stock market (Aunt Josie’s hobby and in a sense profession): bulls win, bears win, pigs lose.

I am certain that Aunt Josie is crying tears of joy regarding the miracle of the return of my mom to my life after so long. To her credit, Josie never tried to take her place — she was and remains always my Great Aunt.

Today’s aspects, courtesy of Serennu:

Friday 04 April 2008

Arachne (5+ Libra Rx) sesquiquadrate Sedna (20+ Taurus)
Eros (1+ Taurus) quintile Chiron (19+ Aquarius)
Mercury (2+ Aries) quincunx Saturn (2+ Virgo Rx)
Mercury (2+ Aries) quintile Jupiter (20+ Capricorn)
Ceres (2+ Gemini) quintile Uranus (20+ Pisces)
Mercury (2+ Aries) septile Admetos (24+ Taurus)
Pandora (21+ Scorpio Rx) quincunx 1992 QB1 (21+ Aries)
Amor (21+ Aries) conjunct Eris (21+ Aries)
Mercury (2+ Aries) square Kronos (2+ Cancer)
Sun (14+ Aries) septile Neptune (23+ Aquarius)
Sisyphus (25+ Libra Rx) trine Hades (25+ Gemini)
Uranus (20+ Pisces) opposite Logos (20+ Virgo Rx)
Sun (15+ Aries) quincunx Hidalgo (15+ Scorpio Rx)
Atlantis (23+ Libra Rx) trine Neptune (23+ Aquarius)
Eros (2+ Taurus) trine Saturn (2+ Virgo Rx)
Venus (28+ Pisces) quincunx Orcus (28+ Leo Rx)
Ceres (2+ Gemini) square Saturn (2+ Virgo Rx)
Ceres (2+ Gemini) semisquare Varuna (17+ Cancer)

Jan. 14, 2000 - VIRGO - Weekly

It may seem that one particular individual has the power to come at you with great force while stirring up a frightening inner tempest that leaves you wide open to their unwholesome designs or manipulations. And for you who so value keeping at least a loose grip on your reality, this could be very disconcerting. It may seem that the solution resides in controlling or amping down your own desire nature, but I assure you this will only serve to stir up more chaos within your psyche, leaving you even more vulnerable. Instead, I suggest you just watch what is happening and let your feelings flow, but be guided by your sense of who you know you are. You’re less vulnerable than you think.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Pluto is in the news today. Several planets are making aspects at once, which is going to let out a little of that Plutonian force like tapping a nail into a shaken-up keg of beer.

As you can see from the aspect list below, there are a lot of aspects many days. The system we’re using, created by a friend in the UK, tracks about 100 planets of various shades, and provides what is called an aspectarian. The list does NOT include aspects made by the Moon; it only includes what are called “mutual aspects,” that is, aspects between bodies orbiting the Sun, and a few fixed points in space such as the Galactic Core.

Scanning the list, Pluto comes up three times today, one of them being in an aspect everyone (as in all astrologers) will see — Mercury square Pluto. Mercury has made a number of squares the past few days. This is deeply introspective and it’s a reminder to keep things that way — and to keep them light, in the interpersonal world. One of the problems with squares is that we can experience them inwardly, and then if the pressure is too intense, project them, mainly as inconsistency.

So the thing to do with Mercury squares is work them out for yourself. Get clear, and then be clear when you communicate. This is particularly true where Pluto is concerned. In other words: how much are you coming from fear, and how much from creativity?

It will be interesting to see how horoscope writers handle this particular aspect today, particularly given that it’s in the powerful cardinal signs, suggesting that it is time for action of some sort. Of course, the rest of the newspaper will be pretty interesting too.

Eros trine Pluto is a reminder that the underlying subject matter driving the equation of one’s life forward is generally erotic in nature. You don’t have to advertise this, but you have to know about it. In other words, you need to understand your motives, so that you’re in touch with your motives. The idea is, if you want to be happy, balanced and moreover effective, don’t allow yourself to be unconsciously driven by deep, dark motives; rather, pay attention to those motives, so that you will be the boss of your own mind and not the other way around.

This is pretty much the game of astrology. Its detractors say it’s about “fate,” but actually you could not get further from the truth for most astrologers — though I will admit that quite a few of them are indeed confused, because of the allure of astrology’s supposedly predictive powers. Within certain limits, astrology can be predictive, but that has to do with the talent of the practitioner and his or her alignment to Spirit. It has very little to do with astrology itself, since you could just as well use coffee grinds.

What astrology offers is a coherent map of consciousness and in effect, a diagram of the options we have open to us. Most of those options are on the level of ideas.

Note that Mercury is opposite something called M87 at the same time it is square Pluto. (We’re working on getting the new version of Word Press to connect to the article with an illustration of M87.) This is a big amplifier. It is the THING that is on the Aries Point. Many astrologers have noted that the first degree of Aries works like a planet. Most of them don’t know there is a fixed point right there, in the form of a huge galaxy on the ecliptic, i.e., the path of the Sun.

Speaking of the Sun — it, too, is aspecting one of these galactic points, called the Great Attractor. This is another one that 99% of astrologers pretend is not there. But this is a little like visiting New York City and pretending midtown Manhattan is not there. The Great Attractor is invisible, far from our galaxy and drawing toward it the Milky Way and a million other galaxies.

A trine from the Sun will open up some of that potency to public (and personal) availability.

Today should be a pretty interesting day. Listen to what you hear, and pay attention to what you say.

Thursday 03 April 2008

Chariklo (9+ Scorpio Rx) septile Pluto (1+ Capricorn Rx)
Mercury (0+ Aries) sesquiquadrate Hidalgo (15+ Scorpio Rx)
Eros (1+ Taurus) quincunx M87 (1+ Libra)
Amor (20+ Aries) sesquiquadrate Hylonome (5+ Sagittarius Rx)
Eros (1+ Taurus) trine Pluto (1+ Capricorn Rx)
Sun (13+ Aries) quintile Hades (25+ Gemini)
Venus (26+ Pisces) quincunx Sisyphus (26+ Libra Rx)
Sun (13+ Aries) sextile Nessus (13+ Aquarius)
Mercury (1+ Aries) opposite M87 (1+ Libra)
Mercury (1+ Aries) square Pluto (1+ Capricorn Rx)
Sun (14+ Aries) trine Great Attractor (14+ Sagittarius)
Mars (11+ Cancer) quintile Asbolus (29+ Aries)
Atlantis (23+ Libra Rx) septile Saturn (2+ Virgo Rx)
Saturn (2+ Virgo Rx) semisquare Varuna (17+ Cancer)
Venus (26+ Pisces) square Galactic Center (26+ Sagittarius)
Mercury (1+ Aries) sextile Ceres (1+ Gemini)
Amor (20+ Aries) quintile Kronos (2+ Cancer)
Uranus (20+ Pisces) sextile Sedna (20+ Taurus)
Sun (14+ Aries) trine Ixion (14+ Sagittarius Rx)

May 30, 2002 - Scorpio - Weekly

Are you grieving the loss of the original woman you once were who you may have sacrificed to goals you did not really want or were forced to give up in order to survive in the world? The fact that you can feel at all is evidence that she is still alive within you for she is the part of you who feels. Yet for her to find full expression in your life you must not be afraid to become her entirely and surrender to her necessities and desires. This holds true particularly among your friends who are the people who often limit who we are the most. Her primal wound is really about judgment and the fear of judgment and yet she is in all truth blameless. For the men: can you stand a real woman in your life? Can you give her the room and the freedom to BE?

Dear Lamb of God,

I’m back after an extremely rare one-day break from blogging. I would like to thank Pope Benedict XVI for standing in for me, and Jonathan Cainer for arranging this.

As for other April Fool’s Day pranks, Anatoly created the Sponsored by Exxon-Mobil splash page. Danielle Voirin created the UFOs over Los Angeles in about three minutes before she collapsed from exhaustion one night. Rachel Asher helped me write and edit the Emotoscope, and Anatoly came up with the emoticons.

One that you did not have the benefit of seeing yesterday was my email to the secretary of Steve Poskanzer, the president of SUNY New Paltz. This is by the way for fans of the Dioxin Dorms.

These are four dormitories that are on the campus that are contaminated with dioxins and PCBs where the students live unwittingly. Basically, I wrote a fake letter to the college president telling him that one of his contaminated buildings (Bliss Hall) was going to be shut down by a nonexistent agency called the Environmental Interior Agency. The letter indicated that FEMA trailers were on the way so that the students would have a place to live, and that there would be a loan from the State University Construction Fund for hooking up the electricity.

I attached the letter to an email, and wrote to Sandy Hess, Poskanzer’s executive secretary, asking if it was authentic. Needless to say, I did not hear back. However, I hope that it gave them at least 15 seconds’ opportunity to think about what they are doing there.

Many a truth is said in jest. What I have been trying to do is program the minds of people in the New Paltz administration to embrace the concept of these FEMA trailers on their campus (they would have little else in the way of options; small towns like New Paltz cannot just absorb 300 students in a minute, or all 1,200 who occupy the four Dioxin Dorms). I am planting the image of the wrecking balls in their minds. Campus officials have long accused me of trying to get the buildings torn down, or the campus shut down. The more time goes on, the more I feel this is actually necessary.

Check back in a little while and I’ll have some ideas for you about Venus trine Psyche. I’m not done with this blog yet, but I wanted to get the pope out of your face.

I much prefer Venus.

(Back after I go down to Peter B’s Deli.)

OK, back. I live in a a tiny city in upstate New York called Kingston, by the way. When most people think of New York, they imagine a population of eight million, skyscrapers, the subway and so on. Kingston doesn’t have a subway yet; our population is 23,000. I’m surprised it’s even called a city, but in fact it is a little berg, rundown in that curiously rural New York State kind of way, but extremely colorful.

One of my favorite activities is sitting at the little table at the front of the deli and watching the goings-on, taking part in the morning banter and reading my Sally Brompton horoscope in the New York Post. I’ve got them used to the fact that I don’t buy the Post, I just skim it over and jump to the horoscope.

Anyway, Sally recently confirmed that she’s a major-planet kind of woman and does not do much with the minor planets — though I pelt her with bits of information, discoveries and assorted updates as the years unfold. Her take is not unusual: if it’s not in a traditional ephemeris, it’s probably not necessary. Using the major planets, she does an excellent job of chronicling our day-to-day lives.

The minor planets tell different stories; they are akin to a song in a minor key, a side street or a back road that may not be heavily traveled — but when you need it, you really benefit from knowing where it is. Psyche happens to be one of my favorite minor planets, and today it’s in the spotlight: first (therefore, earliest) aspect on the list.

For technical grounding, Psyche is properly called 16 Psyche (the 16th minor planet discovered). She was sighted on March 17, 1852 (she is a Neptune-era asteroid, as are all in the catalog number range of 5 through 20 or so, depending on how you think of an ‘era’). She orbits our Sun in 4.99 (just under five) years, and is located on the outer edge of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Psyche is part of a complicated myth that tells the story of loss of faith in love — one that we all struggle with in our cruel world. It’s about that delicate, daring balance that lovers must maintain in order to keep the magic of romantic love aloft. When it fails, there can be some deep psychic scarring, and this is an aspect of the feeling that Psyche addresses.

As I’ve said before, planets of any kind usually have delineations that go considerably beyond the mythology. What we get with Psyche is this: she represents the idea that we bear a psychic wound that will not heal. It’s the sense of a persistent “soul level” problem that will not resolve; an issue that is always there, no matter what. After a while, I figured out that this is more about an idea than an actual thing that cannot heal (anything is subject to the miracle of healing).

So we need to address the source of this idea, and use the aspecting planets for information about where we can work it out. Venus trine Psyche from Pisces to Scorpio is yet another aspect that says open up the discussion of sexual injury. Psyche may keep the sense of injury or loss concealed. It may say that there is no hope. But let Psyche work as a focal point where you do the work, where you embrace faith, where you strive to give yourself what you need. (Often, psychic injuries are about not getting what we need, or the fear that it will be taken away.)

It is true that people can use our vulnerabilities against us. If that happens, whoever does it is not your friend. At a certain point you need to open up about what you want, need and what is really troubling you, if you want to free yourself from your isolation and spend any of your time in a space where you are accepted.

Psyche in this sense may be a place we protect, the “real you” who is injured and who you keep covered up or protected. This real you is in a sense the seat of the soul, which is often defined in our strange human terms as a place where we are hurt. Venus trine this point today is a gentle reminder that the door is open to a real discussion.

Notably, it may involve what to do about the sense of being trapped in a marriage or longterm commitment (Mercury square Juno). It may involve the fear that if we access our real creative and sexual fire, we will open the door to the unknown (Vesta trine Pandora). And we may use boring, stuck relationships as a way to avoid the shadow material that invariably comes up with deep erotic exchanges. But as with Psyche, that shadow material of Juno or Pandora is deep stuff. Typically, it comprises what we see when we look out at the world and see darkness, ill intent or things we judge that are really our own unprocessed material. Welcome all of yourself into your life and who knows, maybe you will start to feel like you’re really alive.

Catch you tomorrow. Full aspect list and the daily Oracle follow.

Wednesday 02 April 2008

Venus (24+ Pisces) trine Psyche (24+ Scorpio Rx)
Amor (20+ Aries) quincunx Logos (20+ Virgo Rx)
Mercury (28+ Pisces) semisquare Nessus (13+ Aquarius)
Mercury (28+ Pisces) square Juno (28+ Sagittarius)
Amor (20+ Aries) square Jupiter (20+ Capricorn)
Pluto stations retrograde (1+ Capricorn)Vesta (22+ Pisces) trine
Pandora (22+ Scorpio Rx)Sun (13+ Aries) sesquiquadrate
Orcus (28+ Leo Rx)Mercury enters Aries (direct)
Mercury (0 Aries) conjunct Aries Point (0 Aries)
Mars (11+ Cancer) septile Sedna (20+ Taurus)
Pallas (11+ Aries) septile Chiron (19+ Aquarius)
Venus (25+ Pisces) square Hades (25+ Gemini)
Atlantis (24+ Libra Rx) quincunx Admetos (24+ Taurus)

Oracle for today: Apr 01, 2004 - Leo - Monthly

It may be taking longer than planned to work out long-distance arrangements, but you’re in a fine position to tap into your inventiveness and experience with true determination. If you pay attention, you will notice that everything comes back to communication. But you could also say that on the most personal level, the past few weeks have been little other than an exercise in developing your creative prowess and cultivating your initiative. Or is it your faith? Given the rather unpredictable nature of the world, meeting your long-term plans and objectives is very much a matter of keeping your heart and soul open to the best possibilities. It may be encouraging to hear that your most promising achievements follow the day your worst fears seem the most real.

By Pope Benedict XVI, guest blogger

Dear Lamb of God,

Photo by Danielle Voirin

There are many gods in astrology, but there is just one God. It is clear that if you believe in astrology, you believe in “many gods.” As a theologian of several decades experience, in Germany, where God is mandatory, I advise you as your pope to stick to Saturn. It would be less a sin if you only use one planet. God would forgive you, maybe. And if that planet is Saturn, you have a better chance.

You would, however, be better advised to skip astrology entirely, because it is sinful. You may ask, why then do all the great basilicas have zodiacs engraved into the floor, which was done at incalculable expense and which we owe to the toil and labor of many sorry souls? Well, you’re not supposed to know about those, and I have ordered the Holy See tour guides to shut up about that.

As for the Web, as the chief enforcer of that dogma, I say, click somewhere else.

Astrology is the least of it. This sinful website has mentioned the M word so many times, I lost count in 1998. I will not repeat the M word, even though it appears to appear daily on these pages.

Also, there are breasts on this website.

In addition, there have been several articles on feminism, which is the work of Satan.

In conclusion, this website is sinful. The Vatican’s media office is on the editor’s comp list, which is how I know. We do not use the Holy See’s money to read it, but we are happy to get it every week for free, so we can understand its deeply sinful nature.

Very truly yours,

Pope Ratzinger the First