Dear Fellow Traveler:
This weekend, Saturday at 7:30 am EDT (4:30 am PDT, 12:30 pm BST) is a partial eclipse of the Moon in Capricorn. [Most ephemerides list this as the time of the Full Moon; others list the eclipse separately eight minutes later.] This is an eclipse on the Aries Point, with many planets involved. Said another way, we have an eclipse close to the change of seasons, which always brings something, or many things, that are truly unusual. [For new readers who have not seen our earlier coverage, please use the “Prior Issue” link at the upper left of this page.]
It’s as if we stand at an event horizon but can’t see just over the curve of the Earth. These events are likely to precipitate out pretty rapidly over the next few days and weeks, so get ready to make decisions and open up your heart and soul to allow for both progress and its twin, change.
I’ve said just about everything I have to say about this eclipse, but I don’t think I’ve mentioned anytime lately one thing in particular about eclipses in general. Do what you want the day of an eclipse. Focus on what is the most meaningful to you. We often wonder how to change our lives, how to make real adjustments and how to get our desires to manifest. Using astrology as a model, one way is to work with eclipses, which are one of the most fundamental elements of evolution. They are psychic and physical magnifiers.
Therefore, focus on what you want the day of an eclipse. Do what you love best; be with, or be in contact with, the people you love the most. This factor of eclipses is so dependable it’s a wonder there aren’t books and articles written about it, but I’ve never seen one. For most of the world this eclipse happens on a weekend, when most of us have a little more flexibility with our time. Even if you have to work, make sure you invest some of your time and thought into what you love.
One last thing. A South Node eclipse of the Moon in Capricorn has the feeling of the past losing its grip. It’s as if a dimensional portal opens and old emotions can drain out, allowing in a new spectrum of feelings. I dare say we drag around plenty of accumulated anxiety from our ancestors. We’re so accustomed to doing this that we barely recognize what’s going on; we totally take it for granted. You don’t need the fears of your parents and your grandparents, nor of the people who came before them.
The combination of Pluto and the eclipse in Capricorn looks like an opportunity to release ancestral guilt, control and a sense of burden in relationships. Our parents, grandparents and their predecessors had ideas about relationships that they passed onto us — but we need our own basis for relationships. You’re entitled to live your life free of what encumbered them, and you can. One simple formula for exchange to consider is that here in our world of opposites, compersion is the opposite of guilt. It seems to take time, but really it’s a fairly simple choice.
Yours & truly,
Business As Usual | Political Waves
This week, as we all counted our beads praying that things wouldn’t get worse, they did. Along with his staff, our commanding general in Afghanistan got liquored-up on a bus with a Rolling Stonesreporter and let loose the inner ‘mean girl’ in an on-record bitchfest. A federal judge in New Orleans with financial ties to big oil suspended Obama’s drilling moratorium. The Deepwater containment cap was removed, due to ice crystals that indicate the venting system is no longer working, perhaps bumped by an underwater robot. Republican obstruction has left over a million of us without unemployment extensions, which will trickle down to produce further economic desperation across the country. And worse in the long run, playing to our fears much like the buildup to war in Iraq, the cry for policing the deficit infects the political landscape and influences public opinion.
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Business as usual isn’t the people’s business, of course, it’s the big business of corporatocracy. The last several decades have intensified what some call a New Gilded Age ruthlessly promoted by the right, but this has been the American story since its inception. In a real sense, our problems today can be tracked back to the split between property-focused, Christianist federalism and secular Jeffersonian democracy. America is designated a republic, not a strict democracy. Get it? Republicans, Democrats? The difference is illuminated by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia’s comments on capital punishment at the University of Chicago in 2002: “The reaction of people of faith to this tendency of democracy to obscure the divine authority behind government should not be resignation to it, but the resolution to combat it as effectively as possible.” So said one of nine Supreme Court judges with a lifetime appointment, a federalist ideologue of the first water. He is joined by a minimum of three others who interpret this nation’s laws with a bias toward ‘corporate personhood.’
Business this week included Obama accepting the resignation of General Stanley McChrystal, sparing him from firing after years of dedication in combat that included tracking down Saddam Hussein. Yet not forgotten, at least by the left, was the general’s coverup of football star Pat Tillman’s death by ‘friendly fire’ in 2004, and two previous controversial remarks that bordered on insubordination. McChrystal, a counterinsurgency expert, had enjoyed unprecedented freedom, staff and budget in Afghanistan. President Karzai and his military advisors are greatly upset at the loss of this hands-on guy. McChrystal developed a relationship with Karzai, accompanying him to visit tribal leaders and putting a face on American leadership. And let’s be candid — the Afghanis like to look you in the eye as they accept payoffs and cash for their cooperation. Stanley was the man.
In replacing this general, Obama passed the Commander-in-Chief test, garnering public support with his comment that no one man supersedes the seriousness of war. Brilliantly, he’s appointed Petraeus as replacement, a general who is both warrior and statesman. Speculation about those who might step up from the lower ranks or make lateral moves were made moot by selecting McChrystal’s boss for the task. For the troops, this will quickly shore up any wobble in their mission, such as it is, and provide them a level of confidence in leadership. A surprise benefit of this awkward incident is renewed public scrutiny of the mission in Afghanistan.
The war, of course, is only part of our larger economic debate. Long-term unemployment is quickly creating a permanent American underclass, and reported improvements on Wall Street are not apparent on Main Street. Obstructing unemployment compensation, financial regulation and energy reform allows Republicans to wallow in their ideological principal while alienating average citizens, and also provides cover for wobbly Democrats who don’t want to kill the cash cow that keeps them employed. Everything we see around us reflects corporate ‘personhood’ more than actual human need.
Deficit hawks are not new to politics; many of them flapped around during the Great Depression. Economists I admire, like Krugman and Reich, tell us we must spend our way out of this downturn and consider the deficit when we’ve recovered, but austerity measures, such as those imposed in Greece, seem to fire the conservative imagination. It’s a kind of Old Testament meme that someone must pay for the excess of the past, and looking around for a sacrificial lamb, the right again eyes Social Security. Deficit hawks want no hint of FDR’s ‘Nanny State’ policies to intrude on their zeal to draw down the debt. Social Security is one of those entitlements, like Medicare and Disability, that drive conservatives nuts as massive giveaways to the unproductive or the undeserving.
Please notice that this push toward fiscal responsibility is more intent on breaking the backs of the people than the corporations. Hawks might have more credibility if they had embraced the public option, voted to police insurance carriers, big Pharma and big oil, or taken on the corruption in Wall Street, naturally decreasing the deficit with reasonable legislation. Instead, citing the need to maintain our global credit rating, they push cuts to Social Security. Attention, citizen! This is a Trojan Horse, a toe-hold for allowing ALL entitlements to be whittled away.
According to Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, “The Congressional Budget Office shows the program can pay all future benefits through the year 2044 with no changes whatsoever. Even after that date the shortfalls are relatively minor. If we instituted a fix in 2030 that is comparable to the one put in place in 1983 it would leave the program fully solvent out to the 22nd century.”
What Bush accomplished in his eight years of mayhem wasn’t business as usual, but at some point the zeitgeist simply changes to reflect a new reality. What we have today IS business as usual, the business of a nation suffering meltdown and disintegration, toppling under what has become too unwieldy and unbalanced to stand. We won’t be returning to ‘normal’ because our previous condition was unsustainable. Pretending it will return as it was is folly. Yet even now the same old arguments rage between legislating for the public good or for the private sector, a battle between people who are real and a corporate entity that is not.
Here’s what I know about American politics, in a nutshell. Conservatives will turn out in droves to vote AGAINST something, hell-bent on stopping change; progressives will only rush the polls to vote FOR something, eager to create new, inclusive opportunity. At the end of an era, we have an opportunity to end thousands of years of man’s inhumanity to man. If that can become our business as usual — a cause worthy of our passion, dedication and fidelity — count me in. How about you?
Weekly Horoscope for Friday, June 25, 2010, #821 – BY ERIC FRANCIS
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One of the reasons you’re more trusting of your goals is that you’re starting to figure out what they are — and as a result, you’re on the move. But Mars, your ruling planet, is off to the side in Virgo, and there it’s making a conjunction to Vesta. This suggests following a careful and methodical process rather than jumping into anything blindly, or all at once. The less you ‘make this about you’ the more you and everyone else will prosper. It’s become easier to make decisions than it was a week ago — though I suggest you notice the many ways in which those decisions are making you. This is different than being backed into a corner; the feeling is like an obvious choice presenting itself. Obvious translates to developing trust in your motives, which is a result of letting yourself be aware of what those motives are.
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Do you really know what you believe, and have you figured out how powerful your beliefs are? You may get the feeling that someone is flipping on your inner lights. If so, turn your awareness around and look within. In doing so, the thing you might fear is the sudden sense of your own presence in the world, which could indeed come as a shock — and that’s a great thing. Stick with the feeling and you’ll feel guided to take additional steps toward putting that awareness to use. We could describe this process as, “I actually exist, therefore, I have this potential.” Saturday’s eclipse pulls back the veil over a raft of concealed feelings, values and fears that might prevent you from accepting the truth of your existence. That particular database is the accumulated anxiety about living and reticence to change that’s been passed down through your maternal line. Give yourself permission to let go of all that fear like a puff of smoke.
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Having support is mostly about accepting support: that includes embracing encouragement, material assistance, companionship and relationships with peers that help you focus your talent and drive. I suggest you engage in a conscious process of actually taking in, embracing and receiving. Most of us are taught not to trust those who would offer to help; there is presumably some other motive, which involves being taken advantage of. Do the math and you’ll see that this translates to: help = harm. If you have even the vaguest traces of mistrusting those who would help you, purge them from your files now, lest you contaminate the goodwill of others with the fears of your ancestors or the disappointments from your own past. Conduct your life as an active exchange. Many are depending on you, and you on them.
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Personality and soul are said to be two different things. While some schools of thought regard this as a divide and conquer technique (pitting one against the other, or insisting that one is real at the expense of the other), the distinction is useful at the moment. Allow it to call your attention to another level of awareness that has much to offer you. I’m sure you’ve noticed there are those times you feel ‘connected’ and there are other times you feel ‘disconnected’. What, exactly, are you tapping into during those moments of contact? Whatever it is, it’s more easily available now than it’s been in a long time. Your relationships are being reborn with a new sense of purpose; even as you read, this is being revealed. To see this you will need to look deeper than day-to-day circumstances, and keep looking and loving from this perspective.
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I suggest that you not take emotional reactions of others too literally, particularly someone’s seeming fear of women. This person is likely to be expressing something they don’t understand, while at the same time you run the risk of hearing their concern through a narrow filter and making the misunderstanding worse. An eclipse of the Moon is a good time to focus on mother, mothering and children; and this eclipse in the sign Capricorn is saying take this back a few generations. You have some profound emotional healing available through this portal, which may come in the form of making peace with how anxious your predecessors were. In truth, they had no idea what they were even frightened of; they just took the fears of the past for granted. You can afford to look at them, and you can remind yourself that everyone owns their own feelings.
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Get yourself organized on all matters of communicating with colleagues, and your financial affairs. Give yourself about three weeks for the project; take matters one step at a time. You’re being guided by a brilliant kind of intuition, one that is helping you unravel the inner power of your creativity. To make the most of this you will need to be receptive, relatively calm and unusually trusting of yourself. The all-too-outspoken skeptical side of you may wonder where intuitive information comes from — it is amazing to me how many people don’t trust this beautiful human sense. If you start questioning, that’s a sign you’ve stopped listening and have lost contact with your creative source. If you’re feeling confident and curious when you reach unfamiliar territory, that’s a sign that you’re back in contact, so I suggest you cultivate that feeling.
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A close partner has been in an unusually self-sacrificing state of mind, and this may be making you nervous: their motives exist in a blind spot in your perception, and you’ve never quite known them to be this generous. There may also be other sources of irritation, such as a nagging sense that you don’t do enough for others. Notice what the two have in common: the economy of partnerships, that delicate teeter-totter between one side of a human equation and the other. There are two elements of this that you are now free to unravel. One is your hidden tendency to be critical of yourself no matter what is going on; and the other is an excessive belief in the doctrine of separate interests. These are related, and related closely, though it would take a while for an alien psychologist, unfamiliar with human nature, to figure this out. Here’s a simple way to think of the connection: set yourself free and the people around you will feel free.
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Stick with people with whom you share a common purpose. You are being called together, and should have no problem recognizing one another. The common purpose looks like service, but it’s not self-sacrificing. There’s the feeling of giving from the heart, and a sense of taking care of something larger than yourself, for a larger purpose. This, in turn, becomes your shared purpose, which creates common ground. I say this fully aware of how compromised many people are on the theme of cooperation. We are taught to compete over the most trivial, pointless issues, so what you may experience is something of a miracle for this world. The one thing to avoid is self-criticism and in particular, projecting that onto others as any kind of harsh assessment of them. Keep the energy positive, recognize the moment you turn down a dark alley of thought — and go the other way.
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Saturday’s eclipse of the Moon is about focusing on your resources. You are involved with a long-term program of cultivating self-sufficiency. The phase you are at is understanding the necessity for keeping your resources organized, particularly your finances. What ‘belongs to you’ is less about what you own personally and more about what you have access to, and what you are aware exists. Someone close to you may be willing to enter into collaboration with you, and in a sense seed your fortunes. This is a business gesture, however, there is a personal feeling that is infused in what may be a strictly financial matter. You seem destined to learn that you are never really self-sufficient; everything we do involves an exchange with others.
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You are aware, perhaps more than anyone, how many changes the world is about to go through, and I can sense your concern. It’s not strictly personal or private; you are tapping into a collective level, and some huge crossroads that our culture has finally come to. I suggest you focus on one issue: the evolutionary value of events. Stay off of the doom channel and remember that, at the very least, the purpose of the human adventure is to experience, to learn and to grow. At best, it’s about creating our own lives. It’s true that many of our contemporaries are walking around in a coma and can barely be said to be doing any of these three things. However, that does not need to involve you. As the days and weeks go on, you’re being drawn deeper into your own awareness, and are creating many worthwhile experiences. Look for others who are maintaining a creative, introspective way of life and stick with them.
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We are in the midst of some of the most intense astrology of our lifetimes though you have one of the best vantage points available to anyone. I say this for two reasons: one is that you haven’t given up on the power of ideas. In fact, I don’t think you’ve ever had greater faith in human ingenuity, no matter how buggered the planet seems at the moment. Second is that you’re willing to stand back and proceed slowly; you still have a sense of caution about your actions, in the midst of a truly reckless time in history. This will work for a while, though I would caution you that as soon as Saturn enters Libra in a few weeks, the pace of your life will pick up considerably, and you will have less time to ponder. Your faith in ideas and ingenuity will translate to making fast, precise decisions with all of the chips down on the gambling table. You may even be presented with one such situation this weekend.
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You are getting a sense of what is possible, and this is coming with a perhaps daunting sense of all that you’re responsible for. In other words, activating potential comes with stewardship. With wealth comes responsibility for managing that wealth. With influence comes the necessity to be aware of what that influence can do. In nearly all ways your life is increasing and your creative power is burgeoning. With the power to create comes the power to damage or destroy, which is a way of saying pay attention and treat your gifts with respect. You have more influence than you realize at the moment. Rather than suggesting that you foster a paralyzing degree of caution, I suggest you cultivate an enlightening quality of awareness — at all times, in everything you do and with everyone you encounter.