and a little tidbit from the AFL-CIO:

by Tula Connell, Feb 28, 2011

This from AFL-CIO Political Communications Director Eddie Vale who’s on the ground in Madison, Wis.

As we speak, Gov. Scott Walker & the Senate R’s are literally having the windows of the capital welded shut to keep people from passing food into the building to the people inside.

Our attorneys are collecting affidavits from the people who witnessed this, along with people who have been illegally denied access to a public, government, building.

We will be filing for a TRO [temporary restraining order] to open the Capitol.

It is a sad for democracy when Governor Walker and his R Senate allies are locking the people of Wisconsin out of theirown state capitol.

Live in Upstate New York? I didn’t think so. Anyway — here is your latest traffic report from the WUP traffic chopper. And below that is Daily Astrology. Eric is standing in for Len Wallick today.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

By Eric Francis

Yesterday my friend Jenna came up from New Paltz to visit, wanting to talk about/figure out where her life was going. She’s feeling the energy of change in the air and wants to participate in the world. She doesn’t quite know what to do, but she has a lot of knowledge, many interests, good experience and a vision for the future. That she can’t make contact with her desire gave me a hint that something might be affecting a lot more people.

Though I’m someone whose missions and adventures tend to find me (I make the final choice whether to accept the mission, but it’s usually pretty compelling), I know there are many who struggle for direction and to make contact with their passion. When the times are moving fast and there is excitement in the air, it can be challenging if you feel like you’re missing something. Even when someone is participating, there can be the sense of not really going the whole distance or being fully committed, while the excitement is building elsewhere. With that will come the desire to participate in the change and to ‘make a difference’.

The sense that something is happening/you want to get involved is likely to accumulate as the Uranus-Pluto square builds over the next 16 months (and peaks through 2015). In these few years the world is going to move through many transitions; to be in step with this we must be in step with the energy of constant change, and of having few expectations. This will work culturally, and it will work individually. We can see evidence of it now — all the revolutions in North Africa and the Middle East, for example, and the protests in Wisconsin are some of the more obvious expressions. These are cultural changes, but they are also the changes of many individuals adding up to something much bigger than an individual experience.

There are others. As time goes on, the sweeping energy of change in our culture and many other places will become even more palpable, and influence everything from art to technology to ideas to politics to music. At the moment we’re in the full-throttle of an aspect called Jupiter square Pluto, which is stirring up deep passions and the impulse to take sides (which makes a lot of people nervous). This aspect is less about right or wrong and more about trying out an idea.

Also, in a little over a week, Uranus changes signs from Pisces (the last sign of the zodiac, where it’s been for 7+ years) into Aries (the first sign of the zodiac, where it will be for the next 7+ years). This is the Aries Point being energized by one of the most high voltage planets, the one that’s full of surprises and that we can ride into the future like a bolt from the blue. As Uranus works its way into Aries, the Uranus-Pluto square (Aries to Capricorn) gathers energy.

Continue Reading »

Today’s Oracle takes us to the Cancer weekly of June 3, 2005

If recent years of your life have brought you one gift it’s that you’ve become a more stable person rather than someone given to moods and whims of emotion. You’ve earned this privilege by crawling out at long last from under the rock that so many people call life. The entire problem with depression is that it affects many people without them even knowing it and then the vibe has a way of spreading. It takes so many forms it’s difficult to see that they all have something in common. But in truth it’s a state of mind that’s easiest to see from the outside which is where I trust you find yourself today: because there is healing in the air and in your soul and at the moment there is a blessing on your head.

(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: This is a letter we sent to the PW “Sample List” on Friday. I’ve received some amazing responses via email, which I’m posting at the bottom (with permission; anonymously, if requested). – amanda

Yesterday I ran into a friend of mine who said, “Amanda, I was thinking of calling you. What is going on astrologically right now?” She was feeling worked up with rage — much of it tied directly to a past lifetime but triggered by a current event — and intuition was telling her something bigger than herself was in the mix.

Photo in Krakow, Poland by Eric Francis.

I mentioned the current Chiron transits in Pisces: Mars conjunct Chiron which was exact yesterday, and Mercury-Chiron earlier this week. Anything aspecting Chiron will bring the theme of old wounds surfacing into awareness, calling on us to take action in addressing and healing them. For some of us, this may mean injury from a year ago, decades ago or even from past lifetimes, as was the case for her.

We were able to connect the dots: Mercury-Chiron related to her speaking up on a community issue, being called ‘unpatriotic’ for her opinion, and her anger and disbelief that no one else would speak up about that. It totally triggered her most recent past life, in which she was enraged that no one else would speak up about the atrocities she was seeing in Nazi Germany. That is an intense, deep wound to her determination to communicate, and her inner male/warrior is raging over being restricted in the ability to take action. Enter Mars-Chiron.

In general, Mars-Chiron is bringing up intense energy around men, our masculine side, drive, gender rage, suppressed desire, homophobia, sex and the ways these themes impact our relationships. Eric told me the checkout girl at the health food store just asked him, “So why is half the store breaking up with their partner?” The friction of Mars-Chiron involves taking action on the awareness we’re being granted, and is playing out as relationship dramas for some. Many are seeing how certain relationships are not quite ‘real’, and they are realigning under the tension. With the conjunctions to Chiron happening in Pisces, we’re all feeling this awareness very deeply and emotionally; which means we’ll also feel when we’re moving in the right direction, regardless how our intellect may try to rationalize stasis. Stasis simply is not an option, if we’re serious about healing.

Continue Reading »

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

You’ve achieved a level of fulfillment. Now it’s time to step out of your comfort zone; careful as you go.

This week’s reading is about a culmination of some form of activity, or of an aspect of life. The Tens in tarot embody that sense of culmination, and the Ten of Pentacles represents a material accomplishment — something that has been achieved in the physical world. It might not be monetary, although that is one of the more obvious interpretations. But whatever it is, it is noteworthy.

10 of Pentacles, The Fool, Knight of Wands from the Rider-Waite Smith Tarot deck. Click on the image for a larger version.

An elderly man, dressed in elaborate robes, sits with his back to us, his attention drawn to a white dog at his feet, which he is stroking tenderly. In front of him is an archway, and through it there is what I take to be either a young family — man, woman and child — or two women conversing, a child peeping around the skirts of the one who is facing us. The image is imbued with a sense of ease. The old man is free to devote his attention to more leisurely pursuits; the child is inquisitive and playful, grabbing the tail of a second dog that stands behind the first.

There is a playing with perspective here. At first, the man seems quite separate from the group of three, with the archway between them. But when you look at the dogs — one of which is with the man, the other with the group — they are standing close together. In fact it seems as if the man’s hand, and the boy’s, are visually connected through the dogs, as if they are reaching out towards each other. There is a handing over of the reins, implied rather than explicit. A transition from something old to something, or someone, younger and as yet untested.

Continue Reading »

Today’s Oracle takes us to the Aquarius weekly of July 4, 2002

You are more in balance than you think and if you don’t think so then it’s likely you’ve been holding back quite a bit for quite a while and the sudden movement of energy is making you think you feel like some kind of outrageous fool. You can for the moment try out some of your fancier tricks on the world because while your magic is running hot you are protected by a kind of spiritual guard rail that is keeping you within certain necessary limits. But the way to find those limits is to give them a little push and another and another till you know for sure you’re there; then give one last shove. Particularly on the door. Or rather turn the knob.

(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.)

Here is your updated Monday Morning traffic report. Click the gray arrow and it’ll play.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

I’d planned on tackling the budget this week, and the probability of a government shutdown at the hands of overeager congressional newbies. The Baggers are naively flexing their muscles to show ‘why they were sent’ and strike a blow against big government. Very simply, what’s going on — in the House of Representatives, in conservative PACs and think-tank planning sessions, in state capitols gone Republican and in the corporate boardrooms and press outlets they own — is a calculated frontal assault on the working class. This is plain old in-yer-face class war, a somewhat hysterical effort by the wealthy movers and shakers to regain control of the awakening public by PR campaigns and political influence rather than by force; force may come eventually, or at least we’ll smell it in the wind.

"Who's going to shoot Obama?" That's a question posed by an unidentified town hall attendee to Georgia Republican Paul Broun.

It seems obvious that we have come to an impasse that ‘politics as usual’ can’t even begin to address. With the nation’s belt already tightened to touch its backbone, a missed federal payday would cost penalties and defaults for millions of citizens. Seniors without their Social Security checks might not be able to buy food or meds. Public servants without their pay may not have personal resources to rely on,and these are the people who keep the world around us running. The possibility of government grinding to a halt is very serious.

Then why is it that so many of us miss the radical implications of this legislative collision? I think it’s for the same reason that, like the Georgia congressman at a recent town hall meeting, we tolerate without censure or repudiation a question like, “Who’s going to shoot President Obama?”

To plumb the depths of ‘why,’ we have to dial back a bit and look at history and the human condition. The GOP (in all its guises) has declared war on those who would deny them total freedom to exploit others. Examples? Easy and obvious: Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana. A classic case of overreach by a party that has sucked the nation into a vortex of confusion and emotional double-dealing. Now, while successfully bludgeoning the Obama administration for failing to create enough jobs to fill the black hole of unemployment, the GOP at the same time puts 800,000 jobs or more at risk with its slash ‘n burn proposals. The budget crisis gives them opportunity to pull the government down, defund existing policy, and recreate a conservative fiefdom.

Continue Reading »

Today’s Oracle takes us to the Sagittarius weekly of Dec 13, 2001

The first solar eclipse in your sign for many, many years may find you feeling a bit nervous about what feels like an inevitable change. But feeling is the key word here. It’s easy for the Sagittarian psyche to rearrange the energy of any situation and “transcend” feeling entirely. But that won’t help you now, or any time in the near future. The stars are saying follow your lust. It will lead you beyond where you are now, which is what counts the most.

(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.)