Author Archives: Eric Francis

To those who were aware of the data loss (four signs) we have recovered 100% of the data — and I will be doing final edits on the signs today and tomorrow. We are going to take till at least Thursday to finish the site; I will use the time to work on the sign write-ups, which have — as usual — taken on a life of their own. By this morning we were down to two missing signs, and I was able to recover pretty good drafts of both of them. Thank you to Tech Smiths of New Paltz for doing the disk recovery and creating a “probable hits” file which in fact contained the missing signs. The problem turned out to be the Office database; we will be migrating all of our computers out of Office over the next few weeks, in honor of this issue. Anyway — whew. That was a first for the annual edition (which is always an odyssey)…and I trust, a last. I have learned something new.

We will have the sign readings live shortly. Thank you for your patience and for making this project the stunning bestseller that it has become. — love, ef

It’s interesting that now that it’s 2012, we’re hearing none of the usual hype about 2012. Lately I feel like the last guy to get excited about it — but then I’m not predicting doom and gloom. You will have to look for that on other websites.

Ten pounds of bullshit in a five-pound sack -- 2012 is a year, not a movie.

As I go through the sign interpretations for the annual edition, getting an up-close look at the astrology, most days it seems like another year. Every year brings its challenges, its benefits, its advantages and its disadvantages. Yet for sure, there is something special in the air, when it comes to the aspects that are currently taking shape.

It appears, though, that we’re going to see what seems like a delay in the real aspects taking shape. That will in part be due to Mars retrograde in Virgo, which is like a systems check for when the energy fires up to full strength in May. And it comes on like a storm. If 2012 is about “everything, all at once,” as I described it two years ago, then May and June are when we see that in full blossom, like the flowers bursting into the atmosphere at the Botanical Gardens.

I am leaving the Mayan factor — date 13.0.0.0.0 mysteriously turning up on the Capricorn solstice of 2012 — as an X factor. I am not being specifically predictive about it, and I am holding open the space for what it might mean. It’s the big variable. We do have one fantastic article by the way in the resources area, an expose on the Mayan calender by a guy in Amherst, Mass., named Bruce Scofield.

More than any other article or book, this has influenced my thinking. Bruce observes, among other things, that while too much has been made of the Mayan Long Count calendar turnover, in fact it’s kind of amazing that they nailed one of the most dangerous, tenuous changes in human history so far that we know of.

Actual press pool photo of The Three Wise Men as they strolled in the direction of Bethlehem. Is one of them holding a bong?

Today was (and for half an hour here still is) the Epiphany, or Eastern Christmas. In the Catholic version of the story, Jan. 6 is the day that the Three Wise Men, the Magi or the Three Kings From the East, arrived in Bethlehem with frankincense, gold and myrrh. We are told that their names were Casper, Balthazar and Melchior.

They arrived by following “a star” — whatever that star that may have been, they took it as a sign and acted on it, the kind of thing that astrologers do. On the way to see the kid, they stopped by and talked to Herod, the Roman client king of Judea. Herod was thus tipped off to the birth of Jesus, and he asked them to report back about his whereabouts on the return trip. But they followed a message they received in a dream not to do that. They went back by another route — thus playing a pivotal role in the events to come — saving the life of Jesus.

Have they been sainted? I have no idea. (Well, apparently at least Melchior has.) On this basis I call for a little shrine to be placed in every Catholic church devoted to astrologers, with the three of them as patrons; as well as astrological education for all members of its clergy who are interested.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Well — not including looking at these charts years in advance, I have been over the astrology for 2012 five times — forward, backward in three layers, and then forward again. I’ve studied the major planets, the asteroids and many of the new discoveries. I’ve gone over the charts for each of the Sun’s ingresses into the signs, as well as key major events such as Uranus square Pluto, the Venus transit of the Sun and the pattern of 29 eclipse-like events we have this year. The main results of this work are the astrology readings contained in the 2012 annual edition.

My kitchen table desk, where I have written and recorded nearly all of Revolution. Revelation. Reality Check. Those are the Voyager tarot cards to the right, and to the top left is Raphael's Ephemeris, the one used (and published) by the Brits. Photo by Eric.

The audio presentations are done and ready, and I’m close to finishing the written interpretations. With any luck at all, I plan to have the readings available to those who have opted in by Monday night.

I am on schedule to finish the written version of Pisces on Saturday, then I’ve given myself two days to go over the signs and tune up the language; plus the proofreading and production team will be putting the finishing touches on the website. Included are numerous articles, useful resources and the key charts for 2012. There’s also a blog that will track the events, astrological and worldly, as they develop.

Yes, 2012 is the year that the Mayan long count reaches the date 13.0.0.0.0. Nobody is really sure what this ‘means’. Yet I can tell you as a Western-styled astrologer that we are slipping into some extremely rare and exciting aspects, which really heat up in late May. The phase from now until late April is a time of preparation, evaluation and adjustment. Then the real excitement begins. What we saw in 2011 was just the warmup for much more interesting things to come.

Stepping outside of marketing presentations for this project, what I have done with the 2012 astrology is to personalize it for each of the Sun signs and the rising signs. I have meticulously gone through the aspects, and using my gift for developing detailed readings for the Sun signs and rising signs, presented the astrology to you in clear terms, covering the most important areas of your life.

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This is a short passage from the part of the Aquarius horoscope that explains the long background leading up to the current changes in your life. –efc

Uranus passed through between 1996 and 2004, which may seem like it’s in the distant past (particularly in our era of Dog Years) however Uranus left its mark on you: the restless, spontaneous quality of this planet imprinted you with the sensation that nothing was worth holding onto because it simply was not possible to cling. Your own influence in the world was something that had mixed results, though you had radical, interesting ideas and were coming into the beginnings of a vision.

Yet that vision came in flashes that were difficult to grasp, much less develop. And for you who prefers to know your way, who prefers to live in a world of orderly progression and some coordinated logic. In sum this transit not only made it difficult to know where you stand – it challenged your trust that you could actually know where you stand.

In a way this was good preparation for the world that arose in the late 1990s and early 2000s – one that was characterized by an explosion of change (if not progress) where everything and anything that was previously believed to have been stable or dependable went through some huge series of upheavals. The Internet propagated on the planet like an instantaneous manifestation of some strange, new energy covering and permeating society. In some way you knew you were part of this and you may have even participated directly, though that still did not add up to a sense of logic or order.