It’s your old pal Eric checking in…

Hey there.

I thought I would say hello. I am, as I trust you are, thoroughly enjoying watching this daily series develop, and watching the talent of the Planet Waves writers come out. Particularly on days like today when I have a bit of other writing to do, let’s see, I did four articles today…it is reassuring to know that some great knowledge is being created and passed along. The comments are always a LOT of fun. If you’re one of the readers who chimes in with your wisdom and insight, thank you.

I keep wanting to do a credits page with photos for the writers, but you know how it is. So I’ll just introduce the crew. This page is headed up by Rachel Asher, who lives between Orange County, New York (about an hour south of Kingston) and Ireland. Rachel started in the spring as an offensive-line research assistant, and when the moment came to recruit a full-time editor, she was the obvious choice. Then I discovered that she could write, and then she started writing better stuff, interesting stuff, and she grooves on gender studies (one of my obsessions).

Rachel is a Libra and I better ask her what sign her Moon is in — I don’t know. It must be something durable; she can handle me. This morning I dreamed she was the Earth Mother.

There is no more satisfying feeling as an editor than watching your writers develop; and this holds especially true, in my opinion, for women, whose voices are so often shut down in our blather-mouthed, commercialized society, and for no good reason. So…onward with the credits and if you want to join our writing team, drop one of us a note.

Genevieve Salerno is my neighbor in Saugerties, NY. As legend has it, she showed up one year ago for an interview to be a Book of Blue model and left an hour later as an astrology apprentice. She mentioned that she was in to Runes and Norse mythology and of course the conversation took off. About two weeks later, she was learning — having had no prior experience in astrology — to put 50 minor planets into a chart (hello Ixion, Chaos, Pholus, Asbolus, Chariklo), mind you, all the while with me going through the angst of the annual horoscope (Small World Stories).

Genevieve is the kind of girl who makes her own pickles, goes to Death Metal shows and I think she’s home right now carving up a venison leg that her boyfriend’s brother hunted last night. She writes the weekly aspects, does articles for this blog, scouts for data, mails clients their tapes and I’m doing my best to get her into the rhythm of being a practicing astrologer. She is a Sagittarius with a Virgo Moon and she looks like my long lost little sister with her Moon face and her dark brown Sicilian locks that go on forever.

Fe Bongolan started as my astrology client ages ago. When you’re an astrologer you invariably discover that some of your clients know a lot, and some know more than you do, and that was the feeling I had from Fe. I learned that she’s connected on the San Francisco liberal political scene, and that she was spamming her comrades behind the scenes places like MoveOn with Planet Waves Astrology News. When we talk, unless I’m in a totally somber mood, I can’t stop laughing; I think she even thinks I’m funny when I’m feeling like piss and vinegar.

I just cannot seem to be blunt enough for her. I love that Fe is writing for this page; she brings in a deeper political perspective, with some ever-important context (she’s a bit older than me), and I love hearing what she has to say and how she has to say it, but you miss the full impact unless you have her on the phone while you’re walking on a busy street.

Okay — that’s the basic introduction to the band as you know of it here. Our editorial team has other luminaries — for example there is Judith Gayle, who writes Political Waves for the Friday edition and also on her own blog that we publish. Jude joined the flock when I would get these emails full of links to news articles all the time; which were mingled with Course in Miracles commentary.

I had started the Political Waves list so that people would be less inclined to throw rotten tomatoes at me back when the Bush War II was still considered the next best thing since World War II. Now that it’s considered the next-worst thing since Vietnam, I still get the occasional ‘cancel my subscription’ attached to a slightly moldy heirloom tomato. But for the most part I credit Jude with personally turning public opinion against the war. Jude is one of my spiritual pillars and has helped keep me sane through some positively mad moments.

In the background playing the drums, Mac and PC is Anatoly Ryzhenko. He is our tech man in the Ukraine. Anatoly has kept me company around the clock for four years, building Planet Waves from a modest but well-run little site to the humming empire that it is today. As everyone has no doubt figured out, I populate my life with women, but every now and then a full-spectrum man comes along and signs up to be my brother.

Anatoly has been taking care of me since the day we met (virtually, that is), while I have traveled in country after country (France, Spain, Netherlands, England, Canada, the United States, Poland and a few others, I am sure, oh, Belgium too), from airport after airport, at every twisted hour of the morning, noon, night and some times of day you haven’t even heard of. He and I can do a whole website in a weekend. The man is a work monster and I have never, ever heard him complain, which I make up for eloquently.

In the deep background is Chelsea Bottinelli. When you subscribe, she puts the money into the right bank account and pays the Planet Waves bills. Chelsea, we love you. I love you.

That all being said, I was going to talk about the November monthly horoscope, which I completed today (the long one — there are now four monthly horoscopes that subscribers get). All I’ll say is this, I’ve never felt like having a party after finishing a horoscope column, except for today. (It was also the latest on record, coming in fully 10 days after its hypothetical schedule). It focuses on Pluto ingressing Capricorn, which begins when Pluto in Sagg takes its final bow at on the eve of the Sagittarius New Moon Nov. 26.

Yours and truly,

Your astrologer, who has been writing for approximately 11 hours today and whose fingers are still talking. It is time to go hunting in my studio kitchen, and dive into Photoshop,

— Eric Fwaaancis.