William Lilly.

My own cosmic thoughts today are focused on the Sun in the last degree of Leo, about to change signs to Virgo. This is sometimes (though rarely) referred to as the Sun being void-of-course; sometimes it’s called anaretic, which means in the last degree (or two, depending on whose concept you use). The rules for void-of-course evolve. From what I understand, the modern adaptation is a bit different than the Elizabethan one (modern astrology, as we practice it today, has deep roots in the mid-1600s, particularly through an astrologer named William Lilly). To me it means that the Sun makes no new aspects to major planets or points before ingressing Virgo tonight. Though despite being in Leo, it is rather trine to Pluto in the first degree of Capricorn, which aspect will perfect, earth-to-earth, over the next 24 hours or so. I have grown to love the feeling of the void-of-course or anaretic Sun. I notice unusual developments, have unexpectedly authentic conversations, and there is a sense of relief that the expressive/ego consciousness of the Sun is muted. The ego is generally rooted in the past; the anaretic quality is about the need to embrace change. I also think of the Leo to Virgo area as the sphinx point, where we combine the energy of a woman with the energy of a cat. Or maybe just notice…

Chuy Garcia works the registration desk at the Loving More east coast conference. Photo by Eric Francis.

When I heard about Loving More in the fall of 1997, the news came as a great relief: there were other people in the world who were practicing committed, nonmonogaous relationships. A girlfriend named Sister Pam (she had a nun thing going on) handed me the magazine; I saw that there was a conference coming up less than two weeks later, just an hour’s drive from where I was living. I managed not only to get into the conference but to be a presenter. I’ve attended and presented at more than a dozen Loving More conferences since then.

The East Coast conference takes place the weekend of Sept. 11-14 at the Easton Mountain resort near Saratoga, New York (close to Albany). It’s a small conference, with only about 75 people attending. The crowd is a bit older — I am on the younger side, though the youngins have committed to bringing more people to the event. The facility is really nice, the food is great and the weekend is cheap, as conferences come. For anyone worried about the thing being ‘too wild’ rest assured, I’m usually the wildest thing there.

Loving More’s conference is relationship oriented, with lots of communication about communication, trust, feelings, family and all the good stuff you wish you could talk openly to your lover about and maybe you’re fortunate enough to be able to. I’ll be co-presenting two workshops, one called Let’s Talk About Sex and the other being my traditional (if you can call it that, but it does seem to be a tradition) communal selflove-in on Saturday night.

Robyn, the facilitator and magazine’s editor (who happens to be a competent professional astrologer as well) emailed me and said there is still some housing available. Here is the conference website. For any readers in the New York or Boston areas who would like to get together, this is an opportunity.

We’ve got some things to talk about, here beside the rising tide.

Greetings. Here’s what’s new and upcoming. Today is the Leo New Moon. That was exact today at 6:01:24 am ET. The New Moon aspected many planets, including the triple conjunction in Aquarius, as well as the Mars-Uranus square, and Mercury. Details on the Leo New Moon are in the member post below, The Holistic Sense of Self. This New Moon is about finding a balance between self and other, including the Big Other known as the rest of us.

The Sun ingresses Virgo Saturday at 7:39 pm ET, and is currently positioned in one of the most potent areas of the zodiac, the Leo-Virgo cusp. An open post below called Leo and the Sphinx describes this area in terms of its relationship to the Goddess.

I’m wrapping up a very late Planet Waves Monthly horoscope for September, which will be distributed on time to subscribers of Planet Waves Astrology News and Next World Stories Tuesday morning.

Tomorrow’s Planet Waves Astrology News will focus on the upcoming Mercury retrograde. We began the echo phase (also called shadow phase) Monday, Aug. 17. The retrograde begins Sept. 7, the station direct is Sept. 29, and the second echo phase ends Oct. 14. Many factors distinguish this Mercury regrograde, including the involvement of two signs (Virgo and Libra), a series of squares to Pluto and conjunctions to Saturn, plus the involvement of the Aries Point.

I will have the details tomorrow morning in Planet Waves Astrology News. If you’re not a subscriber you can still take advantage of our summer specials at this link.

Introduction. Hard to believe that it’s been three years since the controversy about whether Pluto is a planet, and the designation of both Pluto and Eris as dwarf planets. Yet after these thousand days, astrology seems no better adapted to work with or address the issues of Eris than it was the day it was named. Planet Waves has provided coverage right from the beginning. This coverage got the attention of even the Wall Street Journal, which featured my thoughts on minor planets as part of its coverage. This article is one of my favorites on Eris and Pluto. It was written in late 2007, about one year after the fireworks. –efc

Photo by Danielle Voirin.

ASTROLOGY DOES NOT know how to deal with new planets. It does so grudgingly, pessimistically and rarely. Astrology tends to be obsessed with predicting the future, but stuck in the ways of the past. We could do with less of both.

And if you believe that, it’s a great time to be alive. I say this because we are in a moment when we need to create the future rather than predict it, and also when we have access to the visioning power of astrology to help us do so. As for new planets orbiting our local Sun, in late 2006 Eris got catalogue number 136199. The catalog includes only those objects orbiting our Sun, including asteroids, Centaurs, and a wide diversity of objects further out than Pluto.

You haven’t heard of most of them, if any. If you follow astrology, maybe you’d heard of Sedna or Varuna, relatively recent discoveries beyond Pluto. You’ve heard of Chiron, which has made an unusual splash since its discovery in 1977. These planets got a little press, but nothing special, and certainly not what they deserved. The schools kept teaching that there were nine planets, and astrology for the most part kept feigning ignorance.

Eris raised a ruckus because she was the first discovery of a planet bigger than Pluto, and also the furthest object known from the Sun. That in turn raised the long-dormant semantic issue, more germane to astronomers, of whether Pluto was ‘actually a planet’. But it took more than 136,000 discoveries to get sufficient attention of astronomers to acknowledge the existence of these new planets in a way that got public attention, or to make any decision at all regarding the definition of a planet.

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