The Big Country

Dear Friend and Reader:

This weekend is the 244th anniversary of the founding of the United States, usually counted from the date written on the Declaration of Independence.

The U.S. is now well into its Pluto return, an event that has never happened in our history. If we seem to be going through a little extra chaos related to a problem most of the world has already solved, we might consider that astrology.

In all ways, the American Dream is now facing tough times, and some would say it's dead. I don't think that's true, though at the moment, it's being eaten alive by greed, fear and incompetence.

You could say that was always true, though we're in an unusual moment now, where so much is at stake, and so much has already been lost, as tens of millions of people file unemployment claims in our newly reset economy.

The only way to get out of that is going to be envisioning something different, maybe better, maybe enough to get by.

Aspiring to Liberty, Enlightening the World

For a long time, most of the 20th century and some of the 21st, the American Dream was a kind of World Dream: people loved our Elvises and Hula Hoops and the frontier spirit of the Wild West. They loved our Rough Riders and our New Deal and our role as the supposedly good cop on the global scene.

Our Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World (a gift from France) was, if not a representation of truth, something to aspire to. In fact, countless millions of people have come to the United States for a better life, and many have found it: an historical fact we do not share with many other places, and that many are loath to admit.

Along the way, we seduced the world with Jack Kerouac going On The Road, and with Jack Kennedy and Marilyn and Annette Funicello, and Lassie and Farrah Fawcett. We gave the world Babe Ruth and also Jackie Robinson.

Everyone knows who Neil Armstrong was, and what Woodstock was. Throughout the Western world, many people can sing at least a line of one Bob Dylan song — probably more. And whoever has been touched by any of these people has a little piece of the American Dream in their heart.

The United States is often accused of not having a culture, but that's laughable. Lou Reed could stand face-to-face with all of British rock — and his most famous song is about a transvestite named Holly from Miami.

When most people outside the United States love the concept of our country, much of what they love is our culture but also the expressive freedom we have to say and do the kinds of things that can be said and done here. Nearly every country I've ever visited seems at least a little envious of American society and our concept of freedom, or aspires to emulate it in some way: if in no more than blue jeans and the Nike swoosh.

The People's History

And then what?

Then there is the People's History version of events, with its multiple genocides of our indigenous people, and the buffalo, and the festering wounds of slavery and Jim Crow that lay as open as the incomplete post-Civil War Reconstruction.

James Baldwin (1924-1987), the African-American writer, was once asked his definition of liberty. "That's quite a question," he replied. "I suppose nobody really asks themselves that question. Well, I can always quote the Declaration. 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal'. And the moment I do that, I'm in trouble again, because obviously I was not included in that pronouncement."

Actually, some people do ask themselves that question, and they mean it, and they want an answer. Sometimes we need to be reminded to ask. For people who do not feel free, which could be anyone, it's a sensitive topic.

Baldwin said later in the same interview, conducted for a 1985 documentary on the Statute of Liberty: "Liberty is the individual will or passion to be free. But this will is always contradicted by the necessities of the state, everywhere, for as long as we've heard of mankind, for as long as we've heard of states. I don't know if it will be like that forever. For a black American, for a black inhabitant of this country, the Statue of Liberty is simply a very bitter joke, meaning nothing to us."

Yet Baldwin recognized his liberty, and he took it. He was born in Harlem and rose from poverty, choosing his career: he decided not to be a minister (as his stepfather wanted) but rather a writer who took on challenging themes of racial and sexual identity. He was respected and financially successful. That is unusual for any writer. He is remembered today. That is also unusual.

His early writing first appeared in a high school publication — a distinctly American innovation, rooted in our commitment to freedom of speech, such as it is. When he was ready, he left the United States and moved to France — the same country that gifted us the Statue of Liberty. One of the most important elements of freedom is the ability to get the hell out.

The American Dream is not evenly distributed, though it cracks through the pavement and thrives in some of the least likely places, and in unusual forms.

Many of the most successful entertainers, artists and athletes rose from poverty, extreme racial prejudice or ordinary middle-class life, not the social clubs of Harvard. They stand as personal testaments to the dream of liberty and success, though it's always at a cost: the American Dream is not free and it never has been. You have to work for it. This is a different kind of work from trying to stay afloat and survive: the difference is knowing you're working toward something.

The Cost, in Blood

The cost is often paid in blood, though not only of our military.

There were the 1964 murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, three young men who went to Mississippi during "Freedom Summer" to register black voters and were killed by white supremacists for doing so. In 1970, Alison Beth Krause, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, Sandra Lee Scheuer, and William Knox Schroeder were shot by the National Guard during a peaceful protest against the Vietnam War at Kent State University.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and many others fell in the line of duty. Being a civil rights leader is so dangerous, few would go near the job.

While the U.S. fancies itself a kind of world savior, the truth also includes Hiroshima and Nagasaki; anyone who could justify the first would be morally hard pressed to justify the second.

Then came the hydrogen bomb. There was the leveling of Korea (not really a war, more of a three-year carpet bombing campaign), followed by Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos (chemical warfare, and conventional), and the CIA overthrow of Chile (on the first 9/11, in 1973). Then came Nicaragua, El Salvador, East Timor, Iraq, Afghanistan and Iraq again.

In our lifetimes, the primary export of the United States has become bombs dropped on civilian populations and water treatment plants. OK, bombs, munitions and wheat, but that's a hell of a price to pay for bread.

I learned in high school that the United States has 10% of the world's population and consumes 90% of its resources. There is not much positive you can say about that; there's no way to be proud of that. And of that 10% who consume the 90%, relatively few get to share in the rewards in a significant way. I reckon that's not in your American Dream, nor in mine.

It's often considered unpatriotic to acknowledge these things. I would disagree. True patriotism is knowing about them, admitting them, and still loving your country, and respecting its potential, and doing what you can to make it better. Any sensitive person has to address the shame and the horrors of the past, though that is not enough. It is going beyond them without guilt that takes courage.

The Dream, Amidst the Wreckage

Despite the wreckage strewn all over the globe and across the landscape of our country, the dream lives on, because it has to.

The American Dream is the notion that it is possible to have one. It's the idea that something other than what you know can happen, and that you can make it happen. The American Dream is connecting with the ability to envision the future.

I keep reading that America is in decline. I read today that the jig is up; our society loves to dance with the apocalypse, and the end has been nigh since the beginning. The American Dream is still alive as long as there's anyone left to dream it. The American Dream is alive right now in Richmond, Virginia, where the statue of Stonewall Jackson is being torn down as I write.

The American Dream is alive in the mind of anyone who filed for a business certificate or started a company today. The American Dream is alive for anyone who applied to college or university. It's alive for anyone who got their driver's license today. It's alive for anyone who is grateful to have paid the rent this month.

Then there is the version of the American Dream which is to make it, or make it big. That craving not just to survive but to thrive — to do what you want, and succeed at it.

The more compromised is our national situation, the more urgently we need the American Dream. Because that dream, that ability to envision both individual and collective life in some new way, is the only path to a future different from the past. Often individual longings have a way of morphing into collective ones that many people identify with.

We Need a Warning Label

This should, though, come with a warning. The American Dream takes gumption: shrewd or spirited initiative and resourcefulness. That does not mean a trust fund. It means being motivated and a little clever. That might include scrimping and saving, or a bit of begging, borrowing and scavenging to get started. It helps if others trust you and you are faithful to that. Mostly you must be faithful to yourself and your purpose.

The American Dream takes chutzpah, especially when things are looking dark. And at times it takes real guts, because the one thing you can count on is a headwind, and a bit of "success breeds contempt."

I would propose that in every new concept of this vision of the future, we make some room for the people who are not up to the task, and somehow include them: those who don't have the guts or the cleverness, or the imagination, or who are not fool enough to try to do the impossible. I think there is a way to do this American experiment without all the competition and social Darwinism that drives at least half the population out of their sanity.

If there is one thing missing from the American Dream as it is usually expressed, that's the one. Many people are not up to the challenge, or keep getting dealt out of the game, or keep losing. It is a harsh situation where people are underpaid and overcharged for all life amenities. Many are not equipped to cope with this, and notably, basic financial literacy is not taught in school so people have a fighting chance. In some families and some regions, poverty seems intractable over the generations.

Some are way too introverted to want to participate much, to play the game, to assert their ideas. So we cannot have a society that is just based on competition. Society must be designed with an element of nurturing those who need it, while letting the strong ones go out onto the ice and play hockey. Older people, among others, must be invited into life and not moved into contaminated nursing homes.

The reason for that is not merely some debility or incapacity. The system is rigged and stacked and we all know it. There are too many useless billionaires, arms traders, corporate drug moguls, religious hucksters and pimps. There are way too many people who think that's just dandy, and who confuse these things with success.

Even if that were not the case, there are people who are not suited to participate directly even in a "fair" system, so society must make room for them and not make them feel bad about it. We need to open up the door, and remember that there is enough to eat. In fact there is way too much wasted food in the land where there's always supposed to be a little extra.

How to do that is another question, though it will be easier if we all do our small part. Let's talk about that.

With love,

---

A Reading About Work and Creativity

"I just purchased my Cancer Dharma reading and my god, it was so on point! It's been building to this since August 1999! You were describing my life!"

-- Julie T.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Long before our current social and economic upheaval, I was designing a reading called THE DHARMA. Initially inspired by something I read in a book on Tibetan Buddhism last year, I wanted to focus a reading on connecting with purpose. The Sanskrit word "dharma" means acting as if to hold the world together.

	30th Street Guitars is one of my best examples of living dharma — acting as if to hold the world together. I describe the business in the Pisces reading.

There are not many cohesive ideas about this. Most are abstract. Therapy can sometimes help, but it's expensive, and most therapists are not creative or business consultants (a precious few are).

Then suddenly society went through all these changes, and my concept for a reading turned out to be right on time.

You may have been jolted out of your previous economic reality by the ongoing financial scenario. This has affected both salaried workers and the gig economy.

In my experience as an astrologer, I know that it often takes something like this to help people hear their calling.

THE DHARMA brings some exuberance to this process. I work with the astrology, describing the environment, looking for openings and opportunities, and offering ideas to connect you with your purpose. I am good at this because it's one of the true joys of my astrological journey. If I could do nothing but creative consulting, business planning and professional focus, I would.

This reading will help you go through the changes that are upon us, whatever their source. We are in a time of extreme flux, and so this potential is present. Society is making a big retreat, and that means there is space available for you to do what you do.

This moment will not last forever. Take advantage of it while you can.

THE DHARMA reading is available as single signs (starting at $44; $22 for each additional) and all 12 signs (for $111). Each reading is fresh and original, and complements the others. At least get your sign and rising sign. You may share with your household!

Personal consulting starts at $555.

Thank you for your trust and your business.

With love,

PS — If you need a sliding-scale option for THE DHARMA, please write to cs@planetwaves.net.

Here are free five-minute reading samples of THE DHARMA:

Aries		Taurus		Gemini	Cancer		Leo		Virgo
Libra		Scorpio		Sagittarius	Capricorn		Aquarius		Pisces

Monthly Horoscopes and Publishing Schedule Notes

Your extended monthly horoscope for July is published below in this issue. We published your extended monthly horoscope for June on Thursday, May 21. Please note: we normally publish the extended monthly horoscope after the Sun has entered a new sign. Aries (March 20-April 19) — Your choices matter, and so does your basis for making them. Events this month offer a series of leadership challenges that will help guide you to the place you will want to be for the next few years. Like many things in the world, you're making the transition from executive authority to new methods of social organization. This is also called informal leadership, though that whole concept must evolve into something more participatory. There's an issue in that relatively few people care what happens to everyone else. You might, though who among your friends is concerned enough to devote themselves to gathering knowledge, building consensus and focusing action? We can expect a long transition, though with little pockets of successful experimentation here and there. In the long run, here is what I would propose: your experiences as a parent, boss, manager, or any form of elected leader will provide a substantial sampling of where human nature is, and where it needs to be. Meanwhile, surround yourself with people who know how to cooperate. Set that as a standard for who gets to enter your life in an intimate or committed way. The nature of both the intimacy and the commitment must be a certain kind of spiritual bond where you recognize having the same underlying purpose and can work from there. What exists on the more surface levels is of little meaning compared to the true common ground you share — the very thing that holds you up, and a spirit of generosity and goodwill toward all living creatures.



The Journey of You and Chiron | A New Reading by Eric Francis

Anyone who has encountered it is curious about Chiron. Planet Waves provides one of the few dependable online sources of information on this unusual planet. For the 10th anniversary Astrology Studio reading, I will be covering Chiron in Aries — a momentous event for all those born under this sign, and of high interest to everyone else. Get instant access to this reading here.

---

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Many things that vexed and challenged you in the past are now revealing their gifts. Yet without trust, you will not be able to receive them. Fortunately, you've faced many experiences in recent years that have dismantled the blocks to intimacy, vulnerability and simply being yourself. Most of these were held in false or conditioned beliefs that had the effect of hardening you and emotionally distancing you from others. Take a moment and make a conscious inventory of what beliefs you've surrendered, given up, disproven, or which have mysteriously disappeared, since around late 2017. Many things have happened in that time, and you may not associate any of them with the way your ideas about life were being disproven. Yet you might try that out in hindsight, as a thought experiment. Many of those will involve some form of guilt being dismantled, which it will not take much inquiry to associate with religious guilt. This comes in many forms and disguises, which all point back to the same kinds of internally installed social control devices. Their purpose is always the same: to make people more manageable. Once the beliefs that support them start to dissolve, several different things can happen, one of which is that your life experience alters to more accurately reflect the truth about your existence. It can seem like the world is changing and you are adapting, but what is really happening is you are changing and what you witness reflects that. So remember, what is true comes from you, and makes the world you see. Focus your efforts there.

You can now get instant access to your 2020-21 Taurus Astrology Studio here for just $44. This reading focuses on a professional breakthrough toward the end of the year, and preparing you for this development. Venus retrograde in the spring is preparation. Mars retrograde in the autumn is preparation.

Ultimately this is a spiritual development, yet in reality we are talking about aligning your purpose with action, with a calling, and with an opportunity. Elements of the reading go out to a series of power steps in 2021. Read more.

---

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — If you've been working to get your financial house in order, keep going, and if you have not, get started. A diversity of factors are coming into alignment that are making it easier to get results. The place to begin is the details: knowing exactly what you have, what you owe, and what you need. This is the personal element. The more you know about the specifics of your situation, the more power you will have over it. You need clarity above all else: the real thing, not just the feeling. That would best come as columns of figures that give you the basic facts. Get help if you need it; make this happen, or catch up if you're behind. This is essential energetic preparation to open the way to greater income, resources and investment in your work. To be ready for that on all levels, you must know where you stand with yourself, and be confident in that. The remaining seasons of 2020 and into 2021 are about a near-total renovation of your life where professional income is concerned. Your opportunities will widen in other ways toward the end of the year, including geographically. Yet in this whole process, it will be best if you proceed from the personal, close to you, then outward from there. Make sure you're clear with yourself before you try to get clear with others. If you're intending to advance your business projects, you need a plan. It might be 1,000 words; not a whole binder, but rather a basic outline of the purpose of your enterprise, who your clients are, where you'll find them and how you'll serve them. You must clear this fog that's been hanging over your professional life, and these are the first crucial steps.

Your 2020-21 Gemini Astrology Studio, The Sacred Space of Self, is now available for instant access. The reading covers Venus retrograde in your sign, Vesta in your sign, Saturn in Aquarius, and the momentous astrology at the end of the year.Thank you for your business and your trust.

---

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — The scale of your life is expanding, potentially in ways you were not expecting. There is a scheme to all of this, though you may not have figured out quite what it is yet. Stick to your sense of purpose. That's likely to be coming in strong now, and as Mercury stations direct in your sign at midmonth, you will gravitate toward a way to focus your ideas. Where you stand now is walking a long trail between attracting what you need toward you, and going after what you want. These would seem to be two distinct approaches or philosophies to existence. Yet that is the essential balancing of the in-breath and the out-breath, finding space you can enter the moment in between. Then it's all one experience, one state of being. You experienced a version of this recently as Venus stationed direct in Gemini, which was (and still is) an exercise in balancing seeming opposites. You're getting a sense of it soon when Mercury stations, and you will again as Mars makes its way across one of the most sensitive angles in your chart and turns retrograde in September, again emphasizing matters of purpose. There is vast and fertile space between opposites, though to find it, you need to know what those opposites are, and then start to see the opening between them. It's going to look more like an alleyway than a vista; a feature in the landscape you may have walked past many times without venturing in. The purpose, the invitation, is to allow yourself to be guided into yourself, to the space where you contain all that you need to know.

Your 2020-21 Cancer Astrology Studio is available for instant access. This year, the time of Cancer began with an eclipse on the solstice, as well as Mercury retrograde in your sign. This is astrology that points to you in a personal way, describing a transition you may not feel ready to make but have been preparing for over long years. Chiron in Aries is also a prominent factor, pointing to some pioneering developments in your professional life. I cover these aspects, and much more.

---

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — The past three months have come with an experiment, described by Saturn making its first visit to your opposite sign Aquarius. Note carefully what happened during that time. The area to focus first is your partnerships of all kinds. What shifted, whether in theme or direction? The action of Saturn is going to redefine the way you relate to people as individuals and as groups. Yet there is something greater that you will benefit from cultivating, which is an enhanced sense of your environment, including everything from people to technology to the direction in which society seems to be heading. You are going to have a role in the significant changes that are on the horizon; you are looking right at them and will be in a position to understand them better than most. Yet a very careful review of events from late March through late June is essential, because when this thread of astrology resumes in mid-December, you will need all the data you can get; you will need all the benefits of experience you can get. Hence, do a careful study of both your life and that of society. We all know that mid-to-late March was when we experienced the beginning of cascading changes in society that nobody alive had ever seen before. This seemed to involve an illness. Yet a holistic analysis tells a deeper story. What we really experienced were the overwhelming effects of the digital environment and its peculiar way of amplifying things. It has changed the definition of what a person is, and those changes are not over. You must know where you stand with yourself on the matter of your humanity and how you intend to preserve it, in the face of much pressure to give it up.

You can now pre-order your 2020-21 Leo Astrology Studio, Notes on Love and Courage. The two giants of the solar system meet up at the end of this year in your opposite sign Aquarius. Eric will explore what this seminal conjunction means for you, and much more. Get your copy here for just $33.

---

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — For years, you've been working toward a breakthrough, whether consciously or not. The power, purpose and determination of your soul has been driving this in a way you cannot block or effectively resist. While it may have manifested many ways for you personally (affecting your relationships and professional life, for example), in astrology it's about your relationship to your creative core. In your solar chart (or natal chart, if you're Virgo rising), Capricorn represents your 5th place (house). That is an odd combination, because Capricorn wants things to be structured, orderly and contained, and the 5th house wants play, celebration and to take risks. But there's all of this internalized parental authority that mostly serves up inhibition. Enter Pluto in 2008, which has been driving, pushing, pulling, dragging and otherwise motivating you to dismantle all of those influences, and to express yourself in a way that actually feels free. Mostly, you need to feel free to take personal risks, most of them expressive. This is not a luxury, like browsing the aisles in a lavish art supply store. It's more like the feeling of urgent passionate impulse to bust out and create anything so you can create yourself, including painting with condiments on the wall, or chopping up books to make a collage, or dancing till you drop from exhaustion. This astrology has now reached its peak. You are at the point where the benefits are coming through. I would remind you though: as passionate or sexual as you may be feeling, this is about you. Anyone involved is merely assisting — everyone needs to understand that.

Get your full Virgo reading by Eric here.
Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — In one of her most passionate poems, your fellow Libra Adrienne Rich talked about "the drive to connect; the dream of a common language." Let that be the theme of your life, remembering that they are one and the same. To connect is not to dominate, to convert, or to take possession of. Rather, rise to the occasion of every person being their own sovereign creature of the universe. Meet people where they are, and do something daring, which is learn their language. Learn their idea and their cosmology. Commonality begins with you. On one level, you're being summoned to leadership — the eclipse in the first degree of Cancer a couple of weeks ago was an initiation into your strength and power. Yet the focus of your astrology is now in your 7th place (house) of relationships and partnerships. This calls for another kind of leadership, such as learning how to say hello, goodbye and thank you in ten languages. You may notice that people will come on to you with more directness than you would like. Some could well do so with less than full confidence, or the finesse you prefer. When that happens, pause, and interview them. I mean it. Calmly get anyone who comes to you, or at you, into a discussion and get them to explain where they're coming from, until you actually understand it. This may seem like a lot, though it's actually the efficient and friendly approach to Mars in your opposite sign Aries for more than five months, including retrograde from Sept. 9 through Nov. 13. This opens the potential for adventure — though also for contention and controversy, of which you must be the master and the referee: so nobody else is.

Get your full Libra reading by Eric here.
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — You probably think of yourself as a rational person driven by logic, though you may have noticed how emotional you actually are. By that I mean motivated (or discouraged) by emotional factors, which also tend to set your limits on what you think is possible. The more you offer your voice to what you feel, and to the potentially irrational currents that run through you, the better access you will have to your significant intelligence. That includes reasoning power, memory and willingness to be contrarian, though that is only the beginning. Your true wisdom will come through when you connect the concept of knowledge to what you feel (which is different from what you emote). Feeling is receptive. Emoting is expressive (including when you do it by yourself). The receptive element is the one that connects you to your power, including being receptive to your own observations — and those of others. The theme of the rest of the year could include working with the process of disruption. This can involve disrupting your idea of who you are, or allowing it to happen. Events in certain relationships will shake you up, so hang loose and move with the energy rather than resisting it. Many factors are helping you bust free of your false security or primal need to be accepted. Therefore, you can afford to ask yourself real questions, including on matters you might have never dared to inquire about. As for one particular relationship: you cannot truly love a person until you understand who they actually are. That seems to be happening.

Get your full Scorpio reading by Eric here.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — The recent Venus retrograde in your opposite sign Gemini has provided you the opportunity to see people from many different viewpoints. That's a function of double- or quadruple-sided Gemini, as well as the shifting perspective of the retrograde motion placed right where you can see it (in your opposite sign). You may notice that a sense of play gets the dialog further than intensity, heaviness or an agenda. Your real concerns have nothing to do with others, anyway, and I suggest you make a point of setting aside that illusion. You are, at this moment, in the process of getting right with yourself. You have the opportunity (by which I mean, it is happening), to work out some titanic issues involving family, and the way that extends into all of your relationships. Because Capricorn is involved, this extends into your relationship with society, the government and the business community. Yet the core is your relationship to yourself, and examining the conditioning to which you were subjected. When you're doing this kind of work, it helps to know what projection is. Please write that on your bathroom mirror: know what projection is, and when you're doing it, so you can stop doing it, and get to the actual business at hand. If I seem to speak with some urgency, it's because the nature of this moment is so unusual and beautiful. You have a rare opening to understand the values that were imposed on you, to see them for what they are, and to push through that and establish your own purpose, ethics and understanding of yourself.

Get your full Sagittarius reading by Eric here.
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Do you have a sense of who you're becoming? You might not, at this point, since so much becoming is happening. It may be difficult to tell what is progress and what is a setback. It is easier and more productive to seek for what is false rather than for what is true. Work with a process of elimination. Keep spotting falsehoods and eventually you will be left with many fewer possibilities to choose from. It's more fun, less confusing and it actually works. After you spend some time narrowing down the possibilities, you will be able to evaluate what is on the landscape. One place you'll be focusing is your family. Here's how that looks. One property of Capricorn is (in my experience) over-investing one's identity in family. This is based on very early conditioning. There are layers and layers to this, though one way to describe it is: you may have an idea that who you are is subject to the consensus of others who hold power over you, or who seem to. The bottom line is your sense of safety, which means belonging, which in turn translates to acceptance. Yet you can only feel safe being accepted if those accepting you know the truth of who you are. So this is where expressing the truth of who you are can seem rebellious, dangerous, and even self-destructive. Yet until you notice that you're accepted as you actually are, in truth, you will not feel safe. And to do that, you must decide that it does not matter what anyone else thinks, which is the actual evolutionary or even revolutionary step.

Get your full Capricorn reading by Eric here.

---

Your 2020-21 Aquarius Astrology Studio is available for instant access. This coming winter, your sign hosts a major conjunction: Jupiter conjunct Saturn, the traditional ruler of Aquarius. That event is exact on Dec. 21, 2020. Eric also covers Saturn moving into your sign from Capricorn during the year, in this not-to-be-missed reading. Order your copy here.

---

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Saturn has been in your sign since late March, and has now retrograded back into Capricorn. This presented an experiment, and an opening for something new, or different, to happen. Plenty did, that's for sure, and not just to you — though your experience is essential to your understanding of Saturn entering your birth sign or rising sign. The next five months present another kind of experiment: an introspective one. The changes that are about to cascade through your life over the next three years are emerging from the inside out. This has been developing for years, and it may have been confusing to see manifestations in the world around you that seemed extreme and which you did not understand. Saturn is making one final return to Capricorn, a transit that began in late 2017 and has stretched out this long (unusual for Saturn, though that's the mathematics of it). You may not be able to complete your inner work in that time, though you can use this opportunity to make an honest assessment of what it is. This is not about goals or setting intentions, but rather understanding certain truths about the landscape of your psyche which are easy to ignore, deny or just miss. What I am talking about is the seat of your conditioning, which you are likely to be resisting with all your might, and want to break free from. I would point out that your growth is not about resisting but rather going with the movement you are experiencing. Use the next five months to gain perspective, which means knowing the lay of the land. Make a healing agenda.

---

Astrology Studio for Pisces | A New Reading by Eric Francis

This is a momentous time in collective history, and a turning point in your life. As the year develops, most of the movement — including Pisces' ruling planet Jupiter, and the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction — will be pointing into Aquarius, the most sensitive and innermost angle of your chart. I will also cover the retrogrades of Venus and Mars, and the forthcoming Jupiter-Pluto conjunction in your friendship sign Capricorn. Mostly, I will help you orient on your profound journey, and offer guidance how to harmonize with the world at this unusual time. Get instant access to this reading here.

---

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — In the age of the internet, we are all to some degree public people. Even grandma's corkboard next to the phone, with mementos and photos of the family, is now broadcast to the general public via social media. Everything is inside out; it's not that there is no privacy, but rather the whole concept has been nullified. You are experiencing this in an especially direct way, as Jupiter and Neptune continue their conjunction in your most open, available and public house — which at the moment may feel like a building without a roof to cover it. I suggest you move with this, and stay in the open, where people can see, hear and feel you. There is vulnerability in this, though that ultimately is the door to your strength that must open for you to have access to it. Your connection to others — particularly in your circle of friends, and your personal public — is directly associated with your professional success and your income. You may feel that to succeed at all, you must do so in a big way, one that may seem to exceed your intentions or your abilities. Whether true or not, you're working on a much different scale from even one year ago, though you've been heading in this direction for a long time. So stay on message in all that you do, and actively learn from your experiences. But there is one other thing. Maintain impeccability with money. Consider this the most sacred and spiritual of dimensions of your life. Get help. All financially successful people work with a bookkeeper and an accountant. You don't need investment advice — you are your own best bet. What you need is accurate data, and to know exactly where you stand with yourself and all whom you transact business with.

---