Equals Neil Young. Or at least his Sun and Moon. I’ll try to come back to Neil around the time of his birthday on Nov. 12. Currently, the Moon is indeed in Aquarius, where it is mental, idealistic and needs some grounding in a schedule or project. Today is an idea day; but make sure you apply sufficient focus and structure to make your best ideas happen.

Apropos of Scorpio (where the Sun entered on Friday), a story. I was on the phone with Amanda a little while ago, who wrote the hippie gay marriage referendum blog below. She told me she was at her family home this weekend and took a look at her globe, the one she had as a kid, which was unhinged from its stand and floating freely in the universe.

Looking carefully, she noticed the globe had a Scorpio symbol on it. Small; along a line; the line intersected the equator at an odd angle; and upon further investigation she noticed other zodiac signs were along that line.

“Gee, that’s interesting,” I said. “I wonder what line that is.”

“Um, the ecliptic?” she said. Aah! Yes. She as thinking; I was not.

Astrology, which is part of Paganism, the Occult and the Devil’s Work, is printed on a globe given to children? And they don’t leave off Scorpio, just to be polite? The thing about astrology that is so often forgotten (in its usual treatment as a boutique item) is that it’s part of mainstream western thought; it is one of the foundations of such.

And in this framework, Scorpio is the central issue of existence, if you ask me. That is where humanity is thrown into its seemingly most terrifying struggles: sex, money and death; the root of all power dramas.

Just to track the symbolism here, definitely a great conversation starter, Scorpio is the sign associated in ancient literature with the private parts. It’s also the sign when we celebrate Samhain (pronounced sah-wen). That is, Days of the Dead, which are still commemorated today by Halloween; and these always take place at the peak of Scorpio time.

We know that the link between sex and death is intuitive. The “occult” has known about it forever. But it wasn’t until doing the research for this article in a Planet Waves series two years ago that I found out the connection. In our DNA, sex and death are functions of one another. In order to have sexual reproduction, we must give up immortality. Sex is directly a privilege of death.

Not everyone likes this fact. There are many among us who would rather be immortal and asexual.

As for that Aquarius Moon…

The amount of available real estate in the galaxy increased dramatically this week, with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) reporting the discovery of 32 new planets outside of the Solar System.

On 19 October 2009, the team who built the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, better known as HARPS, the spectrograph for ESO's 3.6-metre telescope, reported on the incredible discovery of some 32 new exoplanets, cementing HARPS’s position as the world’s foremost exoplanet hunter. The system Gliese 667 (Artist's impression).

Yes, that’s right, 32 planets. They range in size from gas giants much bigger than Jupiter, all the way down to super-Earths a few times the size of our current home world.

The announcement pushes the total number of discovered exoplanets beyond 400, a large portion of which were discovered by the folks at ESO using a handy tool they call HARPS — the High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher, a high-resolution spectrograph attached to the organization’s 3.6-metre telescope at La Silla, Chile. This device has aided in the discovery of more than 75 exoplanets across 30 star systems since its installation in 2003.

The astronomers look for planets on stars that are similar to our Sun, as well as low-mass dwarf stars and stars with a lower metal content. Most of the planets found are gas giants, but it is the super-Earths that generate most of the excitement for the potential — however tiny — that they could harbor life. They are also commonly found in multi-planet systems, like our own Solar System.

It is worlds and the similar but still larger Neptune-sized planets that scientists place the greatest chance of life-sustaining conditions being found someday. However, so far the chemical cocktail necessary to support life has only been documented on two exoplanets, neither of them with a rocky composition believed essential to the equation. Both of these are instead “hot gas planets,” and one was also just announced this week, as Space.com and NASA each report in articles from Wednesday.

A video of the ESO announcement can be found here, complete with pretty pictures of those faraway planets — all of which are artists’ renderings, not actual images of the planets.

Today’s Oracle takes us to the Aries – Monthly of Mar 01, 2003

Photo by Danielle Voirin.

This is not going to be your average Spring. The feeling is that of Promethian fire, of minds lighting up one another, of hearts reverberating with the music of freedom. I know the world is on the brink of chaos, but what we are witnessing is nothing more or less than the sum total of all we have denied all these years, and nothing less than the opportunity to go beyond it. As we release those cloaks and buttresses of refusal to know and feel the truth of who we are, we are born into a new world. For a moment, let no practical consideration deter your passion and your craving for vision, knowledge and freedom. Consider that very craving to be your most pressing practical concern. If life were really a game, you would be on top of it. But it’s no such thing. Not now. Not today.

(The Daily Oracle is a random selection from one of 10,000 Eric Francis horoscopes. The Oracle is a divination tool like tarot cards, and also can be used to research any horoscope for the past 10 years. It is available to subscribers of Planet Waves Astrology News in all its working glory. This is a brilliant piece of programming combined with a full decade of Eric’s writing — when you have a question, it really works (as long as you’re sincere), and we know that you’ll love it. Sign up to discover how and why. Or enjoy one selection free here every day.)

Today’s Oracle takes us to the Leo – Weekly of Oct 22, 2004

Photo by Danielle Voirin.

Emotional patterns are the most difficult aspects of life to change. We can shift our financial status, learn a skill, think differently and become masters of the tango before gaining insight into shifting habits that are rooted in the feelings. Yet there are times when this becomes unusually easy, and you happen to be entering one of them. The formula you’re working with is making clear connections between your own history and that of your family. It’s as if you’ve finally noticed that everyone in your family equation shares one root into the past — but vastly different futures.

(The Daily Oracle is a random selection from one of 10,000 Eric Francis horoscopes. The Oracle is a divination tool like tarot cards, and also can be used to research any horoscope for the past 10 years. It is available to subscribers of Planet Waves Astrology News in all its working glory. This is a brilliant piece of programming combined with a full decade of Eric’s writing — when you have a question, it really works (as long as you’re sincere), and we know that you’ll love it. Sign up to discover how and why. Or enjoy one selection free here every day.)

It may be turning colder in parts of the country, but it’s still hurricane season, and the latest Pacific storm brought a strong reminder of that to Baja California over the weekend.

Hurricane Rick. NASA Sattelite image.

While in the open ocean, Hurricane Rick had whipped itself into a Category 5, the most powerful classification of storm (here’s a NASA image from Oct. 18). Its 180 mph winds were the fastest recorded in a Pacific storm for a decade, The New York Times reported, and it sent powerful waves up and down the Mexican coasts that killed two people. However, it lost force as it closed in and by the time it made landfall around Mazatlan, it was a weaker Category 1 storm and lost even more punch as it headed inland, dumping as much as six inches of rain along its path.

Further out in the Pacific, past Hawaii, was Hurricane Neki with 105 mph winds, but it was not expected to come into contact with inhabited islands as of the middle of the week.

And an expatriate American woman living in northern Honduras reported heavy flooding after 11 inches of rain fell in 24 hours early this week. On her blog, La Gringa’s Blogicito, she reported crop damage, landslides and fallen trees, and she included a clip from the local newscast covering the damage.

Most of you knew him as the Old Dude. Don’t look so surprised, he knew what you called him, how you laughed at him sometimes, pitied him at others. There wasn’t much he didn’t know, but he refused to humiliate others by revealing their secrets or having more knowledge than they did. That’s the way he was. And here’s one of the secrets he kept from you: not a single one of you would be here today were it not for him.

Oh, you might exist without him, but you wouldn’t be here, in this place, safe and healthy and even on occasion happy. He never wanted credit for what he did, but now he’s gone I’m going to do what he asked me never to do: tell the story of the man you are burying today, the story of Jude Elihu Lazarus.

That wasn’t his real name. Not even he knew his real name; for as long as he could remember he only had a number. It was 108329877. The reason, as you’ve guessed, was that he grew up in the great American prison system. I have only been able to piece together bits of his early life and can’t even tell you his parents’ names; he never knew them himself. From the age of four he was in “The System,” which some of you might have experienced yourselves: the social workers, teachers, guardians, warders, cops, juvenile officers, judges, psychologists, foster parents, and clergy who with such terrible kindness and authority tear a child’s soul apart and attempt to mold it into some image of their own.

Some children, as you all know, resist this castration of their souls. That’s a strong word, and I choose it deliberately, because that’s what it is: whether boy or girl child, it’s involuntary surgical removal of individuality. Child number 108329877 was one who resisted. Never with violence, he was clever enough to see that violence was what they expected of him, and he learned early always to do the opposite of what the System expected of him. He also learned early on something that served him well his entire prison life, which was to conceal at all costs his knowledge and intelligence from both his fellow inmates and from the wardens, guards, and judges who had total power over him.

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Today’s Oracle takes us to the Aquarius – Monthly of Jun 01, 2006

Photo by Danielle Voirin.

I suggest you stand safely back from any contention or controversy, and not feel the least bit guilty about dodging the situation entirely. At the heart of the matter is someone’s exaggerated sense of reality, which is not exactly benefiting from other frustrations that are getting mixed up with that emotion. As an astrologer I can tell you that the situation will blow through and lose its energy as long as you don’t invest any of yours in the situation. Wait out the storm and get on with your life. That will set the best example for anyone who may need to know.

(The Daily Oracle is a random selection from one of 10,000 Eric Francis horoscopes. The Oracle is a divination tool like tarot cards, and also can be used to research any horoscope for the past 10 years. It is available to subscribers of Planet Waves Astrology News in all its working glory. This is a brilliant piece of programming combined with a full decade of Eric’s writing — when you have a question, it really works (as long as you’re sincere), and we know that you’ll love it. Sign up to discover how and why. Or enjoy one selection free here every day.)

First, thank you so much Aries and Taurus for your generous comments and feedback. I am taking an entirely new approach to the 2010 annual — using investigative reporting techniques for those extended reports. One of them is interviews. So I’m here to ask Geminis (or Gemini rising – my horoscopes are written for Sun and ascendant) in the reading audience to comment on your experiences this year, and whether you feel you’re in harmony with your transits, as you understand them. Certainly all the Aquarius activity has been ringing all the air signs like a bell. Now, Saturn is about to enter Libra and square Pluto — in large measure, an air sign event for sure, but it hasn’t happened yet.

Please let me know what you’ve been up to. Thanks vividly –

Love and lovingly,

cosmicsigns