Dear Friend and Reader:

The Electric Tide Mercury retrograde Report is now done and ready.

This report will guide you through the coming Mercury retrograde in Virgo and Libra on the level of professional astrology, going deeper than dire predictions and warnings about your housecleaning robot acting funny. Mercury is retrograde from Sept. 7 through Sept. 29, arriving with a significant series of events that leads the way into a whole new astrological cosmos, taking us that much closer to the true astrology of 2012.

Photo by Elizabeth Joyce.

You will learn all about it in this report, in clear, friendly language that gives actual depth and interpretation.

I tend to get carried away on these products, and this one is no exception. The lead article, “The Electric Tide,” is my most comprehensive piece of writing on the Mercury retrograde phenomenon to date. I’ve added a section called “What to do if…” you have to make a decision during the retrograde.

It includes an “Expert Guide,” that covers the key dates in the cycle, and which provides the astrological charts for anyone who cares to study them. Because there are a series of Mercury-Pluto contacts, there is a section (in true Planet Waves fashion) called “How To Talk About Sex.” Finally, there is a 12-sign horoscope for all the signs which gives the theme of this retrograde as it affects you personally.

The report is $14.95 to nonsubscribers and $8.95 for subscribers, who also get to give one as a gift.

Here is the ordering link for non-subscribers. Subscribers — check your inbox for the reduced price ordering page.

Yours & truly,

“I often say that in making dances i can make a world where i think things are done morally, done democratically, done honestly.” – Twyla Tharp

As the weekend began, we closed the previous installment of Daily Astrology with T.S. Eliot’s observation relating the “still point of the changing world” to dance. This Monday of a morning we find representations of dance all over the zodiac. The key is to be aware of the which and the who with.

The Sabian symbol for the Sun’s position at eight degrees Virgo is much ado about a poor little rich girl’s first dancing lesson. Put yourself in her position. After all the fuss in selecting a teacher and picking out her clothing, would the hard work of dance seem to be a bit of a letdown? Or would she find her self and her joy in kinesthetic expression? Is she there because of pressure from her parents or did her aspirations inspire her to ask for it? It can go either way. Which way it goes can change with time. The same can hold for the dances we find ourselves in right now.

In my shy and callow youth, my late father encouraged me to go to dances. He told me it was the healthiest way to meet new people. When you think of the exercise, the sharing, the safety in numbers, the physical and social mixing that come with the territory of young people gathering to dance, one can see the wisdom. First, however one must get out of the chair, move away from the wall and take the chance of asking or accepting an offer. Today we see that reflected by several planetary aspects. Vesta (just starting her fire dance in Leo) conjunct the asteroid Hygiea the Greek goddess of health. Mercury reaching out to Venus in an applying sextile. Venus, in turn showing an encouraging response to Mars an an applying semi-sextile. The Moon in Capricorn sending reciprocal vibes to the triple conjunction in Aquarius. What a jam! Raving it up they are! Would you consider joining in? Then look for the invitation in your life today. Have courage and confidence to accept the opportunities presented as you move those energies through your system, join with them as they are offered by others.

Ah, but does the shadow material come to mind? The doubt, the fear of rejection, the stern judgment of the internal parent? That pitfall, those traps do lie lurking in today’s sky in the form of a sho’ `nuff FIXED square dance between three Centaurs (Nessus at 15 Aquarius, Absolus at 15 Taurus and Chariklo at 15 Scorpio) and the asteroid Lilith at 15 degrees Leo (invoking the energy of the hypothetical “Black Moon” of the same name, currently near the end of Capricorn). Eric, of course, has gone to great lengths to teach us the perils of ignoring the energies of the centaurs, the cringes inside the suitcase that we carry while on the journey of life. But that does not mean they have to be your pals. Be aware of them yes. Deal with them, yes. Integrate them and heal the wounds, yes. But you don’t have to make them your date to today’s dance.

Today is an invitation to get with the rhythm of recent and forthcoming transitions. Can you hear the base line the Sun is layin’ down in Virgo? Can you feel the hot rhythm of Venus in Leo? Or the steamy lead from Mars in Cancer? And then there’s Mercury coming out over the top of it all with a tasty harmony in Libra. Dig it.

Now, as a way of transitioning into tomorrow’s Daily Astrology, imagine if you will the figure of the letter “L” followed by the figure of of the number “7″ as you consider these closing words from the late, great, master of dance, Martha Graham “Every dance is a kind of fever chart, a graph of the heart.” – where will your heart be today?

In Loving Service,
Len Wallick

Senator Edward Kennedy, the liberal champion of the U.S. Senate who carried on the political legacy of his slain brothers, was buried on Saturday after four days of emotional tributes.

The man who President Barack Obama called the “greatest legislator of our time” received final sendoffs in Boston and Washington, cities where the Irish-American patriarch of America’s pre-eminent political family wielded his power.

Hello all,

Pretty soon I plan to vacate the East Coast for a week, leave my studio in the capable hands of my colleague Sarah, and head out to Black Rock City in the Nevada Desert. That would be Burning Man, where I haven’t visited since 2001. This is exciting. I travel a lot (sometimes), but I don’t typically get away from the routine.

Photo by Maggie Hallahan.

When I’m on the road, usually I surf from wifi network to wifi network, writing horoscopes and blogs in motel rooms, coffee houses and airports. When I stopped and thought about it, the only other time I was offline for that long (a whole week), since the Net began, was the first time I was at Black Rock City.

In my absence, Len Wallick will be providing you with daily astrology. I trust he’ll be doing a better job than I have been doing lately. I caught onto Len’s talent for astrology in the comment areas; you’ve probably read many of his ideas already. We will mark his posts with the friendly yellow Daily Astrology logo.

Even if there is Internet at Burning Man, I don’t plan to use it. (I’ve rented a nifty satellite telephone to talk to Chelsea every few days, though.) I’m sure I’ll have a few stories to tell from this high-intensity trek through an alternate reality. It’s a world of its own, one where there’s a lot of art and many curious people.

Len, thank you for keeping the space warm and well informed.

Readers or Planet Waves staff with any technical questions can contact anatoly (at) planetwaves.net. Customers with any product questions can contact chelsea (at) planetwaves.net or call her toll free at (877) 453-8265. For local contact in Kingston, drop a note to sarah (at) planetwaves.net.

I’ve written next Friday’s horoscope already, and this coming Tuesday we will be distributing Inner Space monthly to Planet Waves and Next World subscribers. If you happen to be going to Burning Man, you can find me at Poly Paradise, at the corner of 4:30 and Chaos.

Catch you on the other side.

love and lovingly,

efc (Fidel)

PS, in his post below, Len is quoting Burnt Norton, one of my very favorite poems of T.S. Eliot. Here is a little more. There is some mystery about what exactly trilling wire is. As I recall, my professor at SUNY Buffalo, who granted me an independent study on Eliot, said that it was barbed wire used during World War I — tri meaning three points. The barbed wire of these insane wars pierced our flesh and got into our blood. Eliot was not one to use his metaphors carelessly. Even if you can’t quite grasp the meaning, you can feel the elegant rhythm of the words: in light upon the figured leaf.

Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.
The trilling wire in the blood
Sings below inveterate scars
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
The dance along the artery
The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of stars
Ascend to summer in the tree
We move above the moving tree
In light upon the figured leaf
And hear upon the sodden floor
Below, the boarhound and the boar
Pursue their pattern as before
But reconciled among the stars.

“They’re all bold as love, just ask the axis” – Jimi Hendrix

Axis is another word we can pull out of the muck (where it was deposited by the immediately previous presidential administration), clean up and reclaim. Though it be of four letters, it is not a dirty word. It is the the center around which something turns or is arranged. A still, fixed reference point of perception from which perspective can be attained.

In the time zones of continental North America, the weekend begins with the waxing Moon (just past the first quarter) making its monthly crossing of the biggest Axis we know of – the galactic center. Looking up at the night sky with the unaided eye, very nearly every light we can see is of our galaxy. The galactic center is a gravitational and energetic phenomenon that gives us and all those lights something in common, binding us together literally and figuratively. When aspected, it touches on that theme in ways so big and powerful that our mind alone has difficulty understanding or expressing them.

The Moon is literally and figuratively an object of reflection. Lit by the Sun, it illuminates the night as well as the feelings, personalities and processes inside of us. Combine the inside of us with what we all have in common and there is an opportunity to bring ourselves to the still point of the axis and visualize the concept of one with as self evident. Eyes thus opened, the power of love, the importance of tolerance and a source of healing may be there to behold, there for the taking.

While the Moon is crossing the galactic center, the Sun is at 6 degrees Virgo. The sabian symbol for that point is “Children’s voices and the smiles of elders; it is a merry go round with blatant music and unrestrained joyousness”. This would seem to reinforce the idea of an axis around which we can share of our joy and unity as one in our experiences.

In another major aspect for this weekend, Mercury (slowing to about half a degree a day) exacts a square to Mars (actually, beginning very late Friday). This implies that tensions inside ourselves may seek resolution through energetic communication, maybe some of them not so nice. Would it be too much suggest that there is an opportunity as well as a danger here? Is it possible for each of us to be aware of that energy and take conscious control of it? Perhaps turning some of it to listening? Perhaps being proactive in acknowledging and supporting others as they communicate tensions that we may recognize as also our own?

From now until Mercury stations retrograde on September 7th, Eric will be participating at Burning Man, an event where people gather in a hostile wilderness and thrive through the practice of a gift economy and paying it forward. It would be fitting if everyone reading this could find a way to allow Eric and Planet Waves to benefit from the same principles that inform Burning Man. i think you know what i mean.

Until Monday then, i leave you with the words of T.S. Eliot: “At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,…”

In Service,
Len Wallick

Today’s Planet Waves Astrology News looks at the chart of Ted Kennedy.

Click on image to enlarge.

Ted Kennedy’s departure from the planet marks the end of a dynasty in American politics. It’s interesting that we consider it so: John served as president a little more than 1,000 days, more than four decades ago. Robert was mainly known as attorney general. Teddy was a senator — being hailed, probably accurately, as the most effective in the history of the Republic.

A dynasty is something with persistence over time; mainly that was him. Neither JFK nor RFK came close to living out their true potential. Imagine what a different country this could be, if they had. The Rolling Stones once asked, who killed the Kennedys? The reply: after all, it was you and me. The implication is that we are all so distracted with greed and warfare that we cannot focus on what really matters; by our actions and our choices, there is only so much we will allow the cause of humanity to advance.

Ted Kennedy was a Pisces, born Feb. 22, 1932. His friends remember him as charming, blunt, self-effacing and hilarious. He drank a bit, he got in some trouble, he got out of it, and he finally found a good woman to help him stabilize his personal life. Mostly he was dedicated and talented. He identified with people and they with him.

He was, after all, a Fish. He’s starting to remind me of another Pisces of his generation whose life touched an extraordinary number of people of many political persuasions and social strata; another one who carried a piece of American culture, and its pain, on his human back: Johnny Cash.

“For America, he was a defender of a dream,” Michelle and Barack Obama said in an email that just came in. “For his family, he was a guardian.”

Let’s look for those themes in his chart. I will cover five features in this article, for saliency. To sum up: he was Pisces Sun with Capricorn rising and a Virgo Moon. His 10th house of high office is empty, though Scorpio is on the cusp of that house. Most of his planets are concentrated in personal, not public, houses.

Virgo Moon conjunct Neptune (closer than one degree of precision; in the 8th house; or using whole sign houses, in the 9th house). To me this is the aspect that gives away the chart. It’s the image of a dream (Moon-Neptune) and the dream has a tangible, practical side: it’s in Virgo. This aspect represents the low-key, inexplicable charm. There is a perfect morph of the factual and the intuitive; the mundane and the perfectly invisible. Moon-Neptune also describes his alcohol problems and, if you count it as part of the 8th house, the horrendous legacy he lived with: that of so much death constantly around him. Yet again and again he personally escaped death: the plane crash, the car crash, and being the target of a prospective assassin who wanted to get his name in a history book. Looked at one way, that powerful Neptune gave him an aura of invisibility and afforded him excellent instincts so that he could protect himself. It speaks of a very, very strange relationship with his mother. I have never read a biography of him, but to me it looks like severe isolation from her caused by alcohol or psychosis.

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Weekly Horoscope for Friday, August 28, 2009, #781 – BY ERIC FRANCIS

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
Financial issues come into focus now: you’ve reached that critical point where you know the only solution is going to come from applying some serious focus to the question. Think like a scientist, which means methodically. Don’t worry about solving all your problems at once — you’re approaching the time when you finally develop the long-anticipated permanent solution. Consider the following four to five weeks as an experiment in discovering something vital: what is and is not important to you, in this latest incarnation of your life. You thought you knew, but I don’t suggest you assume anything; your priorities have changed, owing to the full-strength maturing process you’ve endured the past couple of years. Some days this has been as much fun as having your leg in a cast, but it’s about to come off.

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