Colette in Toronto, spring 2006. Photo by Eric Francis.

What is sexual freedom? The answer is different for everyone. If I had all the answers, I would say it’s exactly what you need it to be. Yet most of us don’t know quite what this is for us; it’s not a place you arrive at, it’s more like a path you follow over your entire adult life; and as the case is for far too many people, if your hands-on sexual education began, against your will, in your childhood, there is an awful lot of unraveling to do before you can even start to build anew. Recognizing the blocks is one part of the process, but to be released from their hold requires courage to take action, to experiment and to go beyond our fears; real or imagined. Often, parents have not been equipped to guide us through this process when it comes to sexuality; more often they are a part of the vision that’s been holding us back.

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Dear Friend and Reader:

We are out of the thick of the Twilight Zone, post-eclipse. The Sun and Moon are both solidly in Leo, though the one warpy thing is that the Sun is sitting on Ketu, the South Node of the Moon. The cosmos are still vibrating with this event, which was witnessed by hundreds of millions of people across Asia.

The Leo ingress comes with a reminder to all of us not to be so proud. We have a lot of names for the evils of male pride and arrogance; as a society we have fewer names for their female equivalents, and we don’t always know them when we see them. Pride is often a form of retribution on the past; Ketu is about releasing the past. But there is also something here about relating directly to the past; embracing history, being aware of its value, and extracting that which is the most useful; and leaving behind the rest, though consciously.

What is interesting about this configuration is that the Sun and Leo are connected through the fact of sign rulership; this is an ancient dignity, involving the element gold, the role of the king or other high nobility, and many other interlinking ideas from the Doctrine of Signatures. The ‘king’, as JRR Tolkien shows us so well, is the return to dignity and sanity; an internal principle of a guided, sane mind; a mind which has an organizing principle. When there is ‘no king’ — generally symbolized by vast corruption — people themselves are missing something within themselves. There is no male principle; neither men nor women can orient correctly.

We are being offered something here; we are being offered an exchange of that which is toxic for that which is healing. There is a release of toxic pride and the restoration of true dignity implied, and by that I mean guidance toward the receptivity and humility that comprise true nobility.

In any event — an interesting day. And listen to that cosmic bell ring.

Portland, Maine

PS, apropos of cats, the Book of Blue continues. Nudity warning!!

Note to Readers: Mel is our Next World Stories advice columnist.

Dear Mel,

I am guard at [name redacted] Penitentiary. Most days I am on yard duty in this walled-in space for outdoor exercise. It is mostly dust and some shriveled grass since the reservoir dried up and now there’s a situation developing. This little bird made a nest in the dry grass there. It is the first bird I’ve ever seen outside the zoo, and no one here ever saw it before. My partner on yard duty says it is a pelican but I don’t think so, and Lt. Bronson says it’s a rodent if it lives in the ground and we should kill it. I think he is wrong because rodents don’t lay eggs, do they?

Inmates are very protective of the bird and I suspect taking bets on those eggs, but the point is, if Lt. Bronson orders the bird killed there could be some violent reaction.

Inmate 7211409 is the only person the bird has allowed to come near the nest. He feeds it roaches and weevils from the kitchen. 7211409 has drawn some accurate sketches of the bird and its eggs, which I enclose.

It is about 10 inches long and makes a shrill whistling call, “Go Free, Go Free, Free,” which may be what endears it to the prisoners. I would appreciate any information you can give us about this bird and what can be done to protect it.

Signed,
– Newbie Birdwatcher

Dear Newbie,

I passed your letter and pictures to the people at BioHistory Preserves, an eco-unit of Rippov Enterprises, who are very excited about this discovery. They are 99 percent certain from the drawings and description that your bird is a killdeer, a kind of plover once valued for its effective control of tick-borne diseases and thought extinct in North America for many years. Your superiors have already been notified and you will be visited very soon by BHP field operatives as well as the avian taxidermy unit of your state police and local observers from the Reverse Engineering Agency. You are to be commended for alerting them to the bird’s presence, and inmate 7211409 as well for his accurate drawings and descriptions.

Yours,
Mel

Dear Friend and Reader:

We’ve passed through the longest solar eclipse of the 21st century tonight, though the cosmos is still ringing like a bell.

The Moon is now in Leo, crossing its own South Node into southern declination. The Sun remains in Cancer until 12:35:50 pm EDT Wednesday, during which time it is considered anaretic or void of course. These are often unusual phases, brief though they may be, where the unlikely seems to have a higher rating in the probability field. With care, they can be used creatively and reasonably safely. It’s one of those times to work from an idea or to let things play out as they will; but either way, to move delicately, as if under water.

Catch you back when the Sun is in Leo.

Yours & truly,

I’ll help you love you. Please help me love me. This will make it a lot easier for us to coexist, and we’ll be starting with enough love because we each bring our own. Imagine a vector of deep self forgiveness. Rippling into our city.

This human ride

– from Book of Blue

Dear Friend and Reader:

Tonight’s total eclipse (Wednesday in many zones outside the United States) of the Sun in the last degree of Cancer represents a point of demarcation in our lives. It’s one of those rare points in time where we will be able to say, “Before this, things were one way, and after this, they are the new way.” I think this will work even if we’re not вЂ?consciously’ aware of the process; we’re standing in a doorway, a portal, and the past is on one side and the present is on the other.

Photo by Eric Francis.

I recognize that people are trying to do this all the time, usually on New Year’s Eve or their birthday. However, we persist in doing something that mocks living in the past. It’s not possible to actually live in the past but it is possible to be preoccupied with the concept. The feeling of existing in the present is so different than being caught in mental constructs of history as to be a little stunning; perhaps destabilizing. But it is different; with the main distinction being that the world of potential seems so much more open.

Today is a day where it would make sense to look at your life and decide what you want to move on from. Based on the possibilities you see in the world, some of which may have just presented themselves to you recently, it is a day when you can take a step toward what you want to move on to: what circumstances, ideas, people, places and modes of self-expression you want to embrace.

The biggest secret in the universe is not that it’s your life; it’s where to find the tools to make it so. Really there is only one: the power of decision. Every small move means a lot.

Yours & truly,

Aries (March 20-April 19)
What is a man? It depends on who you ask. I would ask you: is a man who you make him, or is he who he is? The answer, so far as I can tell, is somewhere in between: a man who is who he is, but who he becomes depends considerably on who you allow him to be. Today’s total solar eclipse falls on the brink of your 5th house, which is the line where we take risks, including sexual risks. Here, we see the drama to integrate (or reject) feminine energy in the form of the Sun and the Moon in Cancer. Are you willing to allow the men in your life to embrace an introspective, emotionally grounded orientation? Would you recognize someone who did so as a man? Or would he be a eunuch? Remember, we live in a society where if a man wears a coordinated outfit, many would presume he’s gay. This is a difficult place to start.

The Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition by Eric Francis is ready. Here is product and signup information. And we’ve reduced the price of Next World Stories, which is now just $24.95 for all 12 signs.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
Remember that you’re being driven at the moment by an apparent split in your values system. Values are how we guide our lives. Relationships, as well, are based on shared values and a mutual exchange, but it’s difficult to define a shared value and therefore to commence an exchange if you’re struggling to prioritize what’s important to you. But you can do something: you can commit to finding out. You can commit to relationships that are devoted to learning. As a starting point, it would help if you make peace with the notion that learning is a process of change; communicating is a process of change; understanding yourself consciously is a process of change. You will not fall off the edge; to the contrary, once you take a chance and step out of your emotional mire, you will discover that you’re standing on solid ground and in clear light.

The Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition by Eric Francis is ready. Here is product and signup information. And we’ve reduced the price of Next World Stories, which is now just $24.95 for all 12 signs.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
There are so many possibilities; so many of them feel wrong. A few of them feel right. When you engage your desire, one of two things seems to happen: you get caught in a guilt trip, or what you want changes. I would propose that what you feel guilty about is what you really want. What you think you cannot have is what you really want. What you are more likely to reject as inappropriate is what you really want. You might ask how you would ever get out of this conflict, the question takes on different meaning when you remember that the conflict serves a purpose. For one thing, it’s a substitute for depth. For another, it stands in the way of getting anywhere on this issue of desire. And think of it: using this method, you don’t actually have to deal with an experience of fulfillment. Ask yourself if there’s a better way.

The Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition by Eric Francis is ready. Here is product and signup information. And we’ve reduced the price of Next World Stories, which is now just $24.95 for all 12 signs.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
Imagine that you finally have all the power. You have total control. You can do anything to anyone that you want; make their decisions, including their decisions about how they feel, so that for as long as you’re subject to what someone feels, you can decide what that will be. Are you having fun yet? I didn’t think so. Part of the adventure of life is experiencing and adapting to what other people want. Control is toxic in large doses, and it’s toxic in small ones, too. Self-control works, up to a point, but that too quickly turns to a fear-contaminated drama. This thing we want, we can only have when we create it together. You seem to be reaching, at times dearly, for something that you already are inside, but which makes you extremely nervous when you encounter it on the outside, as another person, with their own perceptions, desires, needs and volition. You can come a long way right now by embracing what you perceive as your opposite.

The Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition by Eric Francis is ready. Here is product and signup information. And we’ve reduced the price of Next World Stories, which is now just $24.95 for all 12 signs.

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July 20, 1969. I can’t remember exactly what time of day it was when we watched the first man walk on the moon. Was it dark? Was it daylight? Living in Watsonville, a small-town in rural California, my 14-year old mind had fantastical thoughts, sometimes foreboding ones, about how and whether or not these men, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, andВ Mike CollinsВ were actually alright.

Apollo 11 liftoff from launch tower camera. Photo: NASA.

Already having lived through three assasinations in recent memory –В President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert Kennedy and Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., would these men be safe and sound and actually on the moon? In the Uranus-Pluto inspired upheaval that was the 1960s, we had alreadyВ grown usedВ to associating disasterВ looming in the background of major public events.

I remember an image of the corner footВ of theВ lunar landing vehicle coming closer and closer to theВ В surface of the moon. IВ called my sister in to watch as it was closing in on the moon.В We wereВ watching actual footage of the lunar surface — a grey, dusty and craterous place. This was no longer aВ distant light, but an actual hard, material place.

Not quite believing, yet fighting disbelief, what was coming to us on our TVs, live and right before our eyes was an end to legend and folktale.

I remember vividly Mama’s words, recalling her ownВ adolescence in Santiago,В PhilippinesВ before the Japanese occupation of World War II. В ”You know, when I was your age, I was cooking on a stove made out of stones, with a wood fire we had to keep up during the day. We butchered our own pigs, grew our vegetables, and harvested our own rice. The moon was just a source of light. ”

Then she shook her head as she said “I never dreamed I would ever be alive to see this.”

I remember watching the Miss Universe pageant that evening which broadcast an earlier taping of the contestants watching the first man walk on the moon. Some of the women were holding their mouths, gasping andВ in tears. It was aВ watershed moment inВ the history of our country, the planetВ andВ our generation across the world. This was when we pushed down the walls of global mythology that impossibly distanced us from the stars.

Forty years ago, on this day, ourВ reach exceeded our dreams.В On that day we stood watching, riveted, from living room to street corners — anywhereВ with television sets onВ across the country and around the world.В In a turn of the globe, the world as we knew itВ hadВ irrevocably changed, and we thought, somewhat innocently, anything and everything was possible.