Today’s Oracle takes us to the Pisces weekly of March 4, 2005

Swiftly flow the days though the next week or so is clearly a time of major decisions. Pisces is a defensive sign; that is it tends to respond to the demands of the world rather than making demands or consciously applying creative power. Those Pisces who do get involved in the creative side of the game tend to do well; in fact better than most people expect. So as you revise your plans and make your decisions over the next few days make sure you’re consciously deciding whether your job in life is simply to respond or to set your own vision, agenda, priorities and spend your energy making them real — because you can.

(The Daily Oracle is a random selection from one of 10,000 Eric Francis horoscopes. New horoscopes by Eric are published weekly plus twice a month in Planet Waves Astrology News and Planet Waves Light. The Oracle itself is a divination tool available to subscribers to either of these services.)

Editor’s Note: We’ve been asking our clients for feedback about the professional services we publish, and your responses have created the opportunity for an exciting dialog.

I began reading your page, wow, ages ago. I can’t honestly remember when. I think it was because you had filled in on Jonathan Cainer’s site and I liked your style and checked you out.

I imagine the bigger question is why I keep coming back. I just read your thank you message, and I think the description of this effort being a warm place on the internet is true. I wrote to you a long time ago because I was amazed how on point your horoscopes were for me. I don’t mean in the predictive sense really, because to be honest I don’t use horoscopes as some kind of answer to problems in my life. I actually find if I am feeling that vulnerable and needing answers that desperately for my life, then the last place I should be looking is to a horoscope — and I can’t imagine that your aim is to somehow fix my life anyway. I think that’s why I come to your site, because it helps me keep open. I often find it a very reinforcing space.

I recently printed my Pisces horoscope for March, pasted it to my wall, and meditated to it in the evenings. For me, I find your work helps me to ground myself when I am being pulled in lots of directions. In part because there is a focus to your horoscopes, they build upon each other and thus allow me to reflect on what you’ve proposed. What always surprises me is how well these focused questions or ideas align with my life — I know that is kinda the purpose of horoscopes but it is still a little eerie when it seems like a broadcasted monthly horoscope responds so well to exactly what’s going on for me. I am presuming that’s why this is your gift.

Oh and a shout out to Chelsea who seriously rocks the casbah, man. She is always super helpful and just stellar to deal with.

Take care,

A. from Halifax

Editor’s Note: If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article tells you how to use the spread. You can visit Sarah’s website here. –efc

By Sarah Taylor

In last Wednesday’s exploration of Death and The Tower, I referred to the idea that no card has a definitive meaning that can be applied in every reading. The message that a card brings with it is affected — however subtly — by each client; by that client’s interaction with the tarot reader; and by the circumstances and subject on which a reading is based.

The Sun, 9 of Pentacles and 8 of Wands from the Rider-Waite deck, drawn by Pamela Coleman Smith. The colors here are a little brighter than they appear on the original cards.

Its message also depends on the other cards in a layout, and it is this correlation between cards that we’ll be looking at today.

The three-card reading

I am going to be talking about the cards as they are depicted in the Xultun layout — although I have also included the equivalent cards from the Rider-Waite Smith deck so that you have something familiar with which to anchor yourself if you start to feel somewhat adrift. If you do get that floating feeling, look at the Rider-Waite Smith cards for a few moments, and then go back to the Xultun layout.

A little earlier, I shuffled the cards. One card fell out of the deck while I was shuffling, so guided by the law of synchronicity I took that as the first card. (I refer to these “jumpers” and take their calls for attention seriously.) I then cut the deck, and picked the other two off the top of the last cut.

Continue Reading »

Today’s audio is done. And, I’ve also revised it in an entirely new recording. Part one, my weekly podcast, covers tonight’s Libra equinox followed by the Full Moon. I then look at the Venus-Mars conjunction in Scorpio and consider yesterday’s vote by the Senate to keep in place the “don’t ask, don’t tell” provision of military law.

This allows military brass to go after people just for being gay or lesbian, as if it were possible to root all the queers out of any group of two million people. It’s ridiculous, and politicians are using this as red meat for their political base — but why is it happening? What is the biology and the psychology beneath the politics? In a somewhat froggy voice (apologies) and a slightly foggy mind, I do my best to put this in to the context of the Venus-Mars conjunction in Scorpio.

The second part is a story about horoscope writing and what it means to work in the astrology business on the Internet. That has just been posted. Just reload the audio file page to get that second recording. It’s titled, “So You Hate Advertising.”

Have a great day — see you with a subscriber edition Friday.

Good morning…I am up and at the races, about to acquire some coffee from Dominick’s and record a new weekly audio, taking a closer look at today’s equinox, tomorrow’s Full Moon and Venus and Mars in Scorpio; plus a special supplement on horoscopes. See you back at about 10 am EDT.

Today’s Oracle takes us to the Sagittarius weekly of Oct. 24, 2003

There is a great mystery brewing in your life, one that’s so covert you may not have caught wind of its existence yet. I suggest, however, that you question your motives around any project that comes with the warning “serve or suffer,” because the mystery relates to your own motives in the situation. I also recommend taking a close look at any equations that look approximately like “do this and you can have this” or “if you didn’t feel this way you could accomplish so much more.” You feel how you feel, and what is driving your ambition is driving your ambition. You have a right to know the details of both, so ask yourself.

(The Daily Oracle is a random selection from one of 10,000 Eric Francis horoscopes. New horoscopes by Eric are published weekly plus twice a month in Planet Waves Astrology News and Planet Waves Light. The Oracle itself is a divination tool available to subscribers to either of these services.)

On the eve of a possible vote in the US Senate on the repeal of DADT as part of a military funding bill, pop star Lady Gaga swooped into Portland, Maine on short notice to stage a rally yesterday. Most people at the well-attended rally heard about the event only a few hours before it started. Photo by Amanda.

Maine’s two U.S. Senators, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both Republicans (along with Scott Brown of Massachusetts), are thought to be two possible swing votes on the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward gay and lesbian people in service. The issue is up for a vote this afternoon, tacked onto a military appropriations bill.

At the moment, Democrats are just one vote shy of the 60 (a “supermajority”) required to begin debate. For the past 17 years, “don’t ask, don’t tell” has been the bane of queers in the military. Far from giving them privacy, it became the means for witch-hunts to snoop out non-heterosexuals and kick them out of the military.

With Republican votes expected to increase in both the House and the Senate after the midterm elections, it could be years before there is a chance to get rid of this policy again — mainly because 60 votes are needed in the Senate under the “supermajority” rule.

Here in Portland yesterday, as volunteers for various citizen-action groups handed out leaflets with phone numbers for the senators at the rally, a string of local politicians and gay and lesbian former service members gave their stories to warm up the crowd.

Lady Gaga delivered an impassioned speech (albeit with inconsistent metaphors) noting that she was not aware the US had a “cafeteria constitution,” where one is able to pick and choose which parts one upholds.

The Portland Press Herald reported the following:

It was unclear what impact the rally had on Snowe and Collins.

“Let me be clear, the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ law should be changed,” Collins said in a prepared statement. But she criticized Reid’s handling of the bill.

“Now is not the time to play politics, and I again call on the majority leader to work with Republican leaders to negotiate an agreement so that the Senate can debate the defense bill this week,” she said.

Snowe said the 17-year-old policy is “overdue” for review, but a vote on the policy should wait until the Defense Department’s comprehensive review, ordered in March, is complete.

“We should all have the opportunity to review that report which is to be completed on Dec. 1, as we re-evaluate this policy and the implementation of any new changes,” she said in a prepared statement.

Um, which faction is more guilty of “playing politics” at this point? I have my suspicions. Luckily the visibility and volume seem to be growing for the message of inclusion and equality. It’s not a moment too soon; and it needs to be accompanied by action.

Editor’s Note: Among the cool psychologists I know is Christine Farber, who sent this in. She’s a bit of an astrologer herself and she may have got the cosmic joke about the Sun-Uranus opposition being the perfect day for this post. Thanks Christine! –efc

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” -- Wisdom from fishboy/weirdo Albert Einstein

By Mark Nestmann

Do you question authority? Fail to accept conventional wisdom? Lose your temper when you hear a politician make a promise that you know he or she can’t keep?

If so, you may be mentally ill, according to the most recent revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). In this revision, psychiatrists hope to add dozens of new mental disorders. Unfortunately, many of these so-called illnesses target people who merely think or behave differently from the majority population.

A case in point is “oppositional defiant disorder (ODD).” DSM defines ODD as “an ongoing pattern of disobedient, hostile and defiant behavior toward authority figures.” Symptoms include losing one’s temper, annoying people and being “touchy.” Other “disorders” include antisocial behavior, arrogance, cynicism and narcissism. Sounds like many of my readers!

While diagnosis of ODD “victims” focuses on children, there’s no reason why ODD can’t exist in adults. Indeed, ODD can evolve into “conduct disorder” (CD), which DSM defines as “wherein the rights of others or social norms are violated.”

Uh-oh. So violating “social norms” is now a mental illness as well.

Continued on Mark’s website.

This is one of those songs that sounds better turned up just to the point right before hearing damage.

Today is the first of a three-day equinox. The Sun does not reach Libra till late Wednesday in EDT, when there is a nearly simultaneous Full Moon (early Thursday), but today, the Sun makes an opposition to two planets that are in a rare conjunction — Jupiter and Uranus. Len has been doing an admirable job of explaining the exact astronomy; I’m here to convey some of the energy, so this doesn’t take you by surprise. When you see Uranus in any planetary alignment, that’s the element to prepare for, or better, make good use of.

Transits of Sept. 21, 2010

On one side of the zodiac we have this rare energy burst coming from Pisces. It’s late Pisces, indeed, the next-to-last degree of the entire 360; the end of the last sign. On the other side we have the Sun in Virgo, which by the way is not necessarily that receptive to the energy, but sends this message that it ‘needs’ to be shaken up and woken up. Before its too late. Passively; help me pay attention! Check in with yourself and see if that’s not the position you’re taking.

In between is the Earth, in maximum tension mode. You know, dangling like a pea in the midst of the Sun on the one side (lots of solar energy) and Jupiter and Uranus on the other (lots and lots of planetary energy). There is something here of the feeling of an unresolvable polarity; of needing to stretch across a contradiction; of having two concepts of who you are. Remember — Saturn in early Libra is still opposite Jupiter and Uranus. It’s not exactly opposite, but it’s close enough to be adding tension.

What then happens is that the Sun reaches the first degree of Libra, which is technically the moment of the equinox, the Moon sweeps into the alignment and opposes the Sun. That is the Aries Full Moon. This event has an “out of nowhere” feeling. It could shake up the news; it’s a big day (news wise) in any event: some of the most important provisions of the health care reform act go into effect that day. The Republicans come out with their new, improved plan to lead the nation (yay!).

Virginia plans to execute its first female prisoner since 1912. The Bible down there must leave out the “thou shalt not kill” part.

But there’s more than this in the wings. I cannot tell you what, exactly; but I know it’s there. Today, the thing to remember is — keep your focus, take it as easy as you can, and focus on modest goals while keeping your mind on your real goal. Keep that sense of perspective, of the great challenges and the small ones; your immediate desires and your highest dreams.

It’s not a matter of one or the other right now — its about seeing your life in context, and in perspective.

Please let me know what develops these days.

Yours & truly,

Eric Francis