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 explains how to use the spread. You can visit Sarah’s website here. –efc

By Sarah Taylor

You are taking something on — psychically, energetically, creatively. This isn’t a tangible burden that you experience with your five senses, but you’ll be feeling it nonetheless — either explicitly or implicitly. And carrying it is your choice, even if perhaps the load isn’t entirely yours. There is assistance from outside, but you first need to approach it. Some approaches will be more effective than others.

Ten of Wands, Seven of Wands, Two of Swords from the Rider-Waite Smith Tarot deck. Click on the image for a larger version.

Today’s reading resonates with a fiery charge. Yes, we have two swords in the equation — which represent thought and intellectual analysis — but the focus is predominantly on something far less tangible. Wands, as I mention in the introduction, are psychic, energetic, creative. They seek expression, and yet we are so often fearful of the form of that expression, and what it might mean for us, that we repress it. But wands, by their very nature, cannot be repressed, which leaves us with the options of working with them consciously, or unconsciously.

The next two things that strike me are that there are single figures in all three cards, and the skies are clear: there is no external interference that is relevant here. The conflict and/or sense of oppression comes from within; the attempt to apply logic where logic is ineffective comes from within; the solution comes from within. Key to this idea is the Seven of Wands: what rises up from beneath. This is the fight to keep something in control that is seeking expression, or at least recognition. It might be as yet unconscious, but there are hints of it. It might come out in other ways, but it is asking to be acknowledged.

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Today’s Oracle takes us to the Sagittarius daily of Nov. 28, 2005.

There are two conflicting energies working in your chart. One is hemming you in. The other is pushing you to be free. On one level, there’s an obvious contradiction. On another, it’s only through getting a sense of your limitations that you’re going to go beyond them. So I suggest that you use each and every message that says, ‘You can’t’ and go to work finding out a way that you actually can. In this way, the factors that seem to hold you back will be the most valuable tools in the process of moving forward. And once this process starts, there will be no stopping you.

Are you looking for an extra clue? That’s what astrology is for. New horoscopes are published weekly plus twice a month in Planet Waves subscriber edition and Planet Waves Light. And for your annual reading, check out Light Bridge.

Editor’s Note: Every Saturday, we run a column by Maria Padhila on a relationship-based theme, usually focused on polyamory or what some call responsible nonmonogamy. — efc

By Maria Padhila

“Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t touch anyone.”

I’ve been getting promos for the movie Contagion, which uses this line in its advertising, in my official mailboxes for a while because of a project I’ve been working on. I’m not a scientist or a microbiologist, but one of my real-life jobs is writing for them, so I get to talk to some very smart, advanced people about things that scare most people.

Poly Paradise at Burning Man. Photo by Eric.

But the message in the movie tagline has extra resonance, as the filmmakers’ intended, because this is the message of fear we’ve been being force-fed for a while. It applies to all parts of life — don’t talk to strangers, don’t travel, don’t have fun, don’t have sex.

Whenever there’s a discussion online or otherwise about any form of open relationships, one of the first questions is always about ‘diseases’. When someone, especially a woman, writes about having several partners or even simply enjoying sex in any kind of online media, about half the comments will be warnings that she will get a disease, die of a disease, or give diseases to others.

As a study of epidemics in the past hundred years or so will show, people seem to be doing a very good job of getting diseases, dying of diseases, and giving diseases to others whether they have multiple partners or not.

One of the oddest yet most common of these types of comments is usually along the lines of: ‘I hope you enjoy having all those diseases’. A variation: ‘I hope your partners like getting all those diseases’. It’s as if the Internets are rife with sadistic Sunday school teachers. It’s right up there with ‘Stop crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about’. It’s just the most bizarre thing I could imagine anyone saying, and it’s all over the place.

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By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

China leads the world in executions, and I’d bet that the number reported is just a spit in the bucket, given its totalitarian disposition and enormous population. Right behind China comes Iran, then Iraq and Saudi Arabia. We’re next, according to Amnesty International, although Robert Scheer’s recent essay on state-approved murder cites Yemen and North Korea as major players. That’s the human tribe that traffics in overt government-sanctioned vengeance: China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the U.S., Yemen and North Korea. And woe to us that such an ominous list of murderous nations includes the United States of America, hiding behind its moral imperative and democratic trappings while seeking revenge unto death on those judged guilty.

A passage from Howard Zinn’s book, Killing People to ‘Send a Message,’ tells us: “There are nations like the United States (whose) punishments are legitimized by a complex set of judicial procedures. This is called ‘due process,’ despite the fact that each step in this process is tainted by racial prejudice, class bias or political discrimination.” Up until his final moments, all three of these social stressors were poignantly evident in the sad case of Troy Davis, but that should not surprise us. As the man himself told us on the day his life was extinguished, advocates for the end of the death penalty must keep up the good fight because there are a LOT of Troy Davises out there, all facing a merciless system unconcerned with their civil liberties.

You know this story by heart, I suppose. The news, the websites, the television blared with the high drama of putting Davis to death, Georgia on the record and the judicial system itself in the spotlight. Scheer tells us:

This case was so freighted with contradictions that a stay of execution was clearly in order. As Amnesty International spokesperson Laura Moye stated: “Today Georgia didn’t just kill Troy Davis, they killed the faith and confidence that many Georgians, Americans, and Troy Davis supporters worldwide used to have in our criminal justice system.”

Ultimately, that was the boon that Pollyanna might have culled from this frightful travesty of justice. This week, millions of people around the world peeked in on the life of a doomed prisoner on Death Row and found not only the compassion to sign petitions or join marches on his behalf, but also the empathy to understand that “there, but for the grace of God, go I.”

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Today’s Oracle takes us to the Aquarius weekly of April 25, 2002.

You have long since run out of excuses for not expressing yourself though now it’s becoming impossible to ignore your rather deep inclination to create art and to risk the creation of your life. There is tremendous anxiety in this world around such simple things as painting writing and making changes to our patterns of living that (as does art) reflect who we are into the world and provide us a space within which we can feel more at home here. But you are reaching a limit to the extent to which you can be bound by limitation in this area which is another way of saying that freedom is inevitable: and you know it.

Are you looking for an extra clue? That’s what astrology is for. New horoscopes are published weekly plus twice a month in Planet Waves subscriber edition and Planet Waves Light. And for your annual reading, check out Light Bridge.

The man…

Time Piece

Charlie | Myspace Video
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According to the latest issue of Smithsonian Magazine:

To impress females, male houbara bustards strut, run, flash feathers and emit subsonic booms 18 hours a day for half a year. In young males, the more elaborate the display, the better the sperm. But extravagance has a cost. Scientists in Morocco found that after six years [or four years, according to this post], the most flamboyant males produce a greater proportion of abnormal sperm than do their duller counterparts.

Chelsea Bottinelli, letting it all sink in.

How do you read your horoscope written by Eric Francis, loved by readers and published in magazines around the world since 1995? There’s just one way — subscribe to Planet Waves. Subscriptions also include Eric’s weekly articles, access to the archives and many other features. Visit this link to access your free trial to our premium twice-weekly astrology service. For other subscription options plus audio reports and ebooks, you are invited to visit the Planet Waves Store here.

New edition of Planet Waves. Watch the space below for free sample offer.

Dear Friend of Planet Waves:

Today is the Libra equinox, and we’ve created a special subscriber edition of Planet Waves — called “In Search of Justice.” It looks at the current charts, surveys the social justice issues that have been so present in the news this week, and offers personal astrology that will help you peer into the new season.

If you would like to receive this issue at no cost, Just send an email to justice@planetwaves.net. You will receive an auto-reply with a direct link to the full subscriber issue. That will come immediately — if you don’t see it, check your spam, or request one again.

If you’re interested in one of Eric’s economically priced, well-loved astrology reports, please visit the Planet Waves Store. Our readers have had great success with these reports, which have helped them navigate the strange times we are in.

Thank you for your interest in Planet Waves. We truly appreciate your presence.

Yours & truly,

Amanda Painter

PS, Eric has a free weekly audio program called Planet Waves FM. You can listen to it here.

Deejay Root at Dance New England. Photo by Eric Francis.

Dear Friend and Reader:

I’ve spent the past week brewing in, and working with, the Libra equinox chart. The Sun ingresses the seventh sign at 5:05 am EDT, right during a Moon-Mars conjunction that you’ll actually be able to see if the sky is clear where you are. Venus is in Libra, about to make a conjunction to Saturn. Across the Aries-Libra axis there is a big drama unfolding involving the themes of commitment in relationships, personal autonomy, and why we can no longer ‘find ourselves’ in others. As the next few weeks unfold I will have more to say about that.

New daily astrology logo, by Sarah.

I’ve based tomorrow’s subscriber edition of Planet Waves on that equinox chart — an article called “In Search of Justice,” as well as the 12-sign weekly horoscope. This is about the fifth time I’ve really read that chart carefully, as I work through the many Planet Waves projects that you read or listen to (various reports, the annual edition, monthly horoscopes, weekly horoscopes and other projects). Like most great charts, it looks new every time I come back to it.

In case it’s not obvious from the energy that’s in the air, from the imminent sense of movement, there is a lot vibrating in the planets. Partly this is about the change of season and partly it’s about the specific energy of Libra, one of my favorite signs of them all. I don’t have any planets in Libra, but I love this energy. It’s got a few different dimensions. One is that it’s the expression of beauty through balance. I think it’s the most artful energy, in that way of combining aesthetics with mathematics. There are some fantastic Libra rock stars. I jokingly call Libra the human blow torch. It’s cool and well contained much of the time — then you turn it up and it can put out a focused flame that can cut through metal.

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