Dear Friend and Reader:

It’s New Year’s Eve and we have an eclipse of the Moon in Cancer — the sign ruled by the Moon. Eclipses represent dependable transitions; this is fitting astrology for the end of a year, and even a decade. Yet by our calendar, this is not technically the end of the decade; that’s a year from now. When we get wind of the astrology of 2010, we’ll see that the coming year is the peak of something that has been building since before Dick and Junior went to Washington and committed treason. However, it’s been 10 years today since Y2K; 10 years since another foiled terrorist attack — the guy who was going to bomb Los Angeles airport (LAX) who was busted by a worker on the Washington State Ferries. Vigilance is indeed the price of liberty.

Eclipses come back to any pair of signs every nine years, and the signs where eclipses happen have a way of coloring the world. One of the themes of eclipses across Cancer and Capricorn is emotional dependency and its counterpart, the need to submit to authority. Back when people other than advertising writers thought about psychology, a few of us understood that giving away our power was an emotionally-driven process, fueled by fear and the refusal to take authority for our own lives. Erich Fromm called it the Escape from Freedom.

Here’s a theory for you: humans rarely seem to grow out of the tendencies we develop in our early childhood relationships with authority figures — such as our almighty parents; ministers who claim to personally wield the power of God; and teachers who can inflict torture and humiliation on us. Once instilled, these patterns dominate our emotional landscape; and take up residence in our relationships, our homes, our jobs, our creative experiences — everywhere. Under such emotional conditions, the only acceptable way of life is to be stupid, fat and bored: nobody is threatened. We would in fact express ourselves, if not for the fear of threatening others; which is a ruse for refusing to grow up.

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By Len Wallick. Eric will be back with an entry in the early afternoon.

In spite of Guy Lombardo’s best efforts, “Auld Lang Syne” is the hands down winner of the Kurt Cobain Award for most often mangled lyrics. Of course it does not help that most of us sing it but once a year after consuming alcohol for hours on end. This year, as a bonus, synchronicity makes it a legitimate subject for an astrological column. Plus, as befits the occasion, we can have a little fun. Jupiter knows we could afford to lighten up. It’s New Year’s Eve after all.

The big news, of course is the partial lunar eclipse (visible from Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia) on New Year’s Eve. This does not happen every year (although, in 2010 we do get a total lunar eclipse for the Winter Solstice). Given that our Gregorian calendar is based on the Sun, it’s an extraordinary coincidence. As Eric is fond of saying, however, there are no accidents. So, pour yourself a lemonade, open a box of vanilla wafers and let’s see how the event fits with the song.

First, some basics. Lunar eclipses take place during the Full Moon. A Full Moon is an opposition between the Sun and the Moon with good old planet Earth someplace in between: someplace, as in precisely aligned in a direct line. Think of being in a movie theater. The projector (Sun) is behind us and the screen (Moon) is in front of us, but no film in the projector (a movie by John Cage, if you will). That’s a normal Full Moon.

Now, let’s say you stand up and your head blocks the light from the projector. That’s just like a lunar eclipse with the Earth exactly between the Sun and Moon, casting a shadow on the Moon. But this one is a partial eclipse. Because the Sun is so big, so bright and so far away, and the Earth imprecisely aligned, it does not block out all of the light, just the higher frequencies, rendering the Moon reddish in color rather than completely dark.

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Today’s Oracle takes us to the Libra weekly of Jan. 20, 2006

Developments this week are the first step toward bringing you back to the present and moving in the direction of the future. You still may be preoccupied with a past situation but it’s slowly losing both its influence and attractiveness, particularly if you’ve devoted yourself to working it out. Still, there is no rush, and the future really is taking care of itself. All you need to do to get there is follow the gentle lure of your curiosity and that not-so-subtle yearning for new experience that should be making itself known right around now.

[Eric commenting 12/31/09: What a vague horoscope! I wrote this? It must have been the same day I wrote three columns for Jonathan Cainer and couldn't think of anything to say. I'm looking at a chart for 6/20/06, at the moment and Mars is exactly conjunct Vesta; and has just passed a conjunction to Saturn in Leo. This looks like one of those situations where there's someone you're really interested in and you know they like you, but they're not paying attention to you. What do you do with that kind of a game? Good therapy would say to ignore it and move on; to not encourage that kind of conduct. But with astrology we see the Mars-Vesta contact and wonder: what is this person really going through? The Sun in this chart is about to change signs from Gemini to Cancer -- the chart is right on the northern summer solstice. There is a close Jupiter-Saturn square as well: some kind of last chance is involved. This chart to me says pause a few hours until the Sun has ingressed Cancer and take action.]

(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.)

Hey, question.

Is everyone aware that elements of the American pol system dating to bush1/reagan have maintained unholy alliances with certain muslim elements places like Iran; and that this association has continued to the present day; and use/cooperation of such elements would be a typical kind of move from the rovian playbill. In the smoking panty chart, we see that shadow of Pluto supposedly in the 9th but it is IN the cusp of that 10th…same degree…and the Sun is out there a degree later like it’s hung by, er, puppet strings. who’s the fool who wears the crown? What I am suggesting all in all here is that mars rx is related to centaur Hylonome…the self-inflicted part about ff actions is that…well…who is the self that’s doing the inflicting?

Who in the body politic? Who has cocktails with Osama? It is a clearing deep in a forest: overhanging boughs / Make a low place…

To the Holodeck: Uranus in Pisces

HOLOGRAMS HAVE BEEN part of sci-fi for a long time; the most famous was R2D2′s little movie of Princess Leah pleading to Obi-Wan Kinobe for help. Soon after came the holodeck of the newer Star Trek episodes. But the idea of a holoworld goes back to one of the earliest episodes of Star Trek, The Cage, where people live in a world of mutually-shared illusion. It is this world where Captain Pike disappears in an illusory healthy body after being severely disfigured.

'the thing I came for / the wreck and not the story of the wreck the thing itself and not the myth' — Adrienne Rich, Image by Rami Schandal

Just like in 1995 most of us could never have imagined wandering around to cafés with WiFi connections tapping high-speed Internet access over a spot of latté, we can barely imagine the technological mind meld that is currently rising like the infrared tide.

You can now be injected with millions of little computers (sorry for those who read Wired, this is damn old news). Imagine if those microcomputers could be synced up with your, um, whatever it will be called in two years — your personal assistant gadget. To get at your address book, you think of it. Then, you notice your coworker, the one who smells really good, and get charged with harassment because the IT department intercepted your thought.

If Uranus in Aquarius is dependent upon computer hardware for its effects, Uranus in Pisces will deliver a world where the psychic field is the technological field. What psychic field, you say? Oh, you know, the one that emanates from our bodies and subtle bodies. The one that’s already drowning in microwaves through which our cell phones chatter with their local tower, and the energy swirling in the technospheres of our homes and offices. We are unsure as to how these microwaves are affecting our psychic field, but the evidence that they have a big effect is piling up fast.

If today we see and are affected by technology as a thing apart from ourselves, Uranus in Pisces is likely to continue a pattern of increasing transparency to technology, integrating it more deeply into our routines and our environment, and ultimately into our bodies and senses. There are two general directions this can go, I think. One is that we recognize the stunning technological equipment with which we were born. Our bodies sense the environment, they communicate without sounds and written words, they heal themselves and one another. Many of us are going to develop these skills in greater depth and greater number.

Then there’s another possible direction. Things like electronic hearing implants and heart defibrillator implants seem like good common sense today; like the fruits of progress. And this progress will progress. The line between human and electronic will get ever fuzzier.

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Hi guys, I am taking a day off from editing and writing this blog. If you need me, I’ll be sitting in my kitchen writing Taurus Confidential. There is, by the way, an interesting, almost daily diary at Cosmic Confidential that most of you have not seen. Have a look, it’s pretty fun, and the posts go back for about three weeks. Please note, if you contribute to this blog as a commenter, your log and pass will work for the Cosmic Confidential diary. To customers of this product, this blog is to keep you informed and entertained as I work through the process of doing the interpretations, which will come out after Mercury stations direct. The CC diary is becoming something of a retrospective of the last 11 years of Planet Waves annual editions, which I now recognize as a rare and beautiful Internet tradition.

Today’s Oracle takes us to the Scorpio weekly of Sept 19, 2003

You may be wondering what you’ve done to deserve a particular situation in your life; what hidden karma is at work. I can tell you that to the extent you’re questioning, you’re also experiencing a clean sweep, which is another way to say getting emotionally clear. Karma is action. Action is the fruit of knowledge or the result of ignorance. There appears to be the issue of taking an informed risk in some aspect of your life. Look carefully at how money factors into that risk, and whether your concern actually belongs there. Then either calculate your risk, or resolve not to care.

(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.)