How did we get here? (part one) — plus your June 2020 monthly horoscope by Eric Francis

Planet Waves
New York City, May 18, 2020. Photo by Lanvi Nguyen.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Back in January, Donald Trump was not removed from office after committing what appeared to be high crimes — using his office to gain personal advantage in the 2020 election, and then trying to cover it up. This revealed the failure of our system to correct itself, a massive karmic blunder that everyone could see.

A lot of us were concerned about what would happen next. Even some ardent Trump supporters were made nervous by this development.

As consolation, we were headed into an election where the country could change course. The people would decide. Bernie Sanders and many others were still in the race. There would, at least, be a national conversation about issues that had been sidelined for years.

Central to the election was going to be the discussion of Medicare for all, or some other form of universal health care. It was finally going to be time. The theoretical argument against it was going to be, we can’t afford that. It’s too lavish. That, and for some, the strange idea that “health care is not a right.”

Today, less than four months later, it’s as if there is no election. The “news” consists of around-the-clock reporting on one virus that we were recently assured would kill one to nine million Americans — a death fantasy that terrorized society and Wall Street and that led to a sacrifice of the economy: that is, the ability of many people to pay their way in life: to have food and shelter.

More than $4 trillion in federal debt has so far been spent dealing with this problem and it may not be enough to avert the next Great Depression.

More than 35 million people are off of the employment rolls, meaning many things — including their loss of health insurance, and depending on the state for unemployment insurance. Many more have seen their gig economy income disappear. A great many small businesses are going to fail, and the big ones are already getting bigger.

Read more…

Scopes

Monthly Horoscopes and Publishing Schedule Notes

Your extended monthly horoscope for June is published below. We published your extended monthly horoscope for May on Saturday, April 25. Please note: we normally publish the extended monthly horoscope after the Sun has entered a new sign.

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for June 2020 (#1280) | By Eric Francis

Aries

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Ultimately, to be real, healing is a quest to which one must devote their entire life. The form will change many times depending on one’s circumstances. The underlying purpose of the journey remains consistent, even if you may seem to fail, or your attention to it falters. Now is the time to focus your awareness and your efforts. Call forth your strength and use it well.

In nature, no living system survives without complete and integrated cooperation. That is where you find yourself: needing to be integral to something larger than yourself.

Yet at the same time, Mars entering your sign on June 27 represents your need and desire to assert yourself boldly. That means gaining confidence and connecting your intentions to actions. These two factors can and must work together in your life. One cannot be at the expense of the other, as so often happens.

To this end, many factors are working in your favor. Saturn is now making its test run in Aquarius through July 1. While there is much other astrology to write about, Saturn is the forerunner of the new age of human cooperation and a measure of practical idealism, and you are positioned to gain its richest benefits via your 11th solar house. Yet this calls for a measure of leadership.

Mars’s meeting with Chiron on July 14 will keep that in balance; Chiron is always working for the greater good, and in this position embodies the sacred warrior. This is a personal initiation for you, which you might think of as the opportunity to claim your personal power and express it in the most life-affirming way. You have every reason to have faith in yourself. Others are counting on you, your example and your bold wisdom.

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

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Lately we have been witnessing the shocking influence of Uranus in Taurus. What other influence could take a swath out of financial markets like that? Investors use the term “correction” when the dangerously over-inflated price of stocks takes on a more realistic character. This opens the potential for so many things of genuine worth that go far beyond their cash value. We’re in a moment that our grandparents and great-grandparents might appreciate: a time when necessity matters more than desire.

This is the perfect condition for the evolution of genius and of solutions to long-ignored problems, and rebellion against what has not worked. Yet in your life, this also means looking into the ways of the past, often so much wiser than the way things are done today. Potent activity all year in your fellow earth sign Capricorn is illuminating your imagination and your faith in yourself. You can live in a wider and more beautiful world every day, no matter how strange or uncertain things may seem. That is part of the beauty; uncertainty is the perfect cause for true faith.

Saturn’s ingress into Aquarius, your solar 10th house, describes unusual professional advancement on a lifetime scale. Do not rush things; spring and early summer offer you a time to experiment with the possibilities. While Saturn is entering a sign of its traditional rulership, the Uranus connection is undeniable. Saturn may represent what you achieve and the role that you play, though Uranus represents who you are. We could describe that a few ways, one of which is more radical than you let on.

Let Saturn stand for your reserved and cautious presentation to the world, and let Uranus reflect your quality as an inventor, transformer and revolutionary. All presented in that impeccable, polished and refined manner of Taurus.

Photo by Lanvi Nguyen.

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

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Your relationships are about to take on unusual qualities that are far outside the realm of ‘normal’ romance or partnership. Any situation that may not seem to offer you exactly what you want is in truth offering you something better. You are in a facilitating role in the life of someone close to you. You’re in a position to allow something to happen that might otherwise be impossible.

The water-into-wine transformation is that on some other occasion, you might be more inclined to feel like your desires should at least be taken into account. You now have the ability to set that aside, and this is the source of your true power. Your ability to allow someone else’s needs facilitates their experience, which in turn teaches you something you could not learn otherwise. Knowledge is created which would not manifest any other way.

It is a rare privilege to serve as the guardian, and one to which you must bring all of your learning, your experience, and your courage. Yet you remain largely in the role of the witness, and the catalyst. Whatever you may seem to surrender to be in this position, there is a corresponding gain — though this is dependent upon your humility. That means your willingness to learn, and to face the unknown with respect.

Saturn’s entry into Aquarius, your 9th solar house — that of wisdom traditions, the ‘higher self’ and fair judgment — describes your maturity and balanced quality of your judgment. You may find yourself in a position to make decisions for many other people in the coming weeks and months, or at least to advise them on a difficult ethical matter. Listen carefully to all sides, and then trust your understanding of right and wrong. You, at least, know there is such a thing.

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

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — A profound solar eclipse takes place on the June 21 solstice, just as the Sun enters your sign. This is a point of reckoning for you: a before and after moment in the span of your whole life. Let’s consider the astrology in detail. Your sign is ruled by the Moon. The solstices are the Sun’s most powerful days of the year. The solar-lunar cycle connects right there, multiplying the effect.

It’s important to take eclipses not just as things that happen, but rather as opportunities to use consciously. The first degree of your sign is a point of alignment with existence. It’s also a point of self-creation. You are being presented with an occasion to both reinvent yourself and bring out a deeper quality of who you are, and allow it to enter the world.

Make your choices wisely at this time, though without hesitation. Decide everything on the basis of what you really want — the outcome, the personal reward, what you want to share, and the ability or talent you choose to master. Be bold, and announce your intentions with your actions rather than with words. Do the very thing you want to do, or need to do, and be the person you want to be — and keep going.

Eclipses of any kind are pattern-setting events, which is why actions speak louder than words. Later in the season, as Mars enters your 10th solar house Aries, the effect is redoubled. Mars joins Chiron in Aries on July 14, and the result will be something that can truly be called outstanding. Rest assured that you have grown into yourself enough to far exceed your accomplishments of the past.

Yet be aware at all times that cooperation is the essential ingredient to every success story. To this end, Saturn in Aquarius is your best friend. Ask for the help you need, offer what help you can, and build an organization. That’s the spirit of our moment.


Leo

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — If life is presenting you with a limit, study the situation and you will see the opportunity. This is not merely a “if you have lemons, make lemonade” scenario. Rather, there is a missing piece available, which has the potential to connect you to the world in a new way. The potential opens up briefly as Saturn goes stationary-retrograde in your opposite sign Aquarius. You might even miss it, though there is still something to be gained from a review. Learn everything you can, and plan for the next Saturn-related opening, which will be in December. This happens on an even greater scale, just once, hence the need for a thorough and creative review.

Until then, you have a spiritual imperative to make your work as meaningful as possible. Do this by choosing what is the greatest value, and when you don’t have that option, size up what you’re doing and exploit its potential for learning, growth or service. Take this attitude and you will make significant discoveries that inform not just what you do, but also the purpose of your life.

The breakthroughs are represented by an ongoing series of conjunctions between Jupiter and Pluto in Capricorn, the next of which are June 30 and Nov. 12. Let’s use nursing as a metaphor. This aspect describes using what you learn not just to help a few individuals get well, but rather to create a breakthrough in your profession that benefits people for many years to come.

All of these themes are highlighted by the movement of Mars through Aries, which describes you as restless and in the mood for some quest or adventure. Though your options may be limited in certain ways, your potential for self-development is wide open, and you are being called into an ever more humane worldview. Let that inform every choice you make, and may it infuse everything you touch.


Virgo

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — The peculiar message of your charts is about being realistic, pragmatic and focused on your goals. I only say peculiar because this is not the kind of thing astrologers usually suggest for Virgos in the audience, so it feels a little like selling ice to an Inuit.

That said, your chart describes you as being productive on an industrial scale, though with the potential to be misdirected, and thus to lose the energy rather than harness it.

Therefore, work with tools such as an action plan, a business plan, a strategy sheet, a flow chart or a tangible agenda (all being basically the same thing). This will ensure that you start with clear goals and steps toward reaching them. Then you have a reference point for sizing up whether you’re on track or not. You will need to come back to your plan frequently, pretty much every time you make a decision, to ensure that it’s consistent with your larger goals.

The key is to see every decision as getting you closer to or further from your objective, in a moment when time, money and other resources are precious. Take every opportunity to engage economy and efficiency, and keep checking for leakage, waste and errors.

Venus retrograde in your career and reputation angle is yet another call for a review of what you think of as your most cherished goals. A lot has changed in the past few months, more than anyone would have imagined. This calls for making a careful evaluation of what you consider a priority and why. You have your options open, though that would not matter if you don’t see them for what they are.

Therefore, be bold, be comprehensive and let your creativity flow.


Libra

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Around the beginning of Venus retrograde in May, you seem to have to put a precious long-term goal on hold, for the sake of a much larger goal. This has brought out another side of your nature, one that may have been sleeping for a long time. It’s possible you faced a similar circumstance around 2012, though not even close to the test of faith that you’re experiencing today.

It’s good that you have help. Saturn in Aquarius, now through July 1, and beginning again in December, will help you focus your talents, and create the support systems that you need.

Whatever you’re doing is part of something else much larger, though it may not feel like it at the moment. Start on a small, limited scale, organizing no more than three other people toward a common purpose. Start with a modest goal that feels more like “let’s do this right” than “let’s save the world.” Then learn from the experience.

Then take what you learned, and replicate it. Systemize it. And learn from your mistakes, each of which will pop open a little door of consciousness.

Meanwhile, someone who enters your life will begin with one role and end up with another. Don’t get too attached, whether your response is initially negative or positive. Move with the person at the same time you assert leadership over your life. You may need to push back a little, or set some boundaries. You’re available for some things and not for others.

Pay attention to how this person tries to influence you, and how they relate to the rest of their environment. Note the differences. You are likely to get a look at their true colors and true purpose around the time of the Mars-Chiron conjunction in your opposite sign on July 14. This is a potentially glorious moment of teaching and learning.


Scorpio

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — You are on a special healing quest. Yes, you and the whole world, though your personal, individual life goes on — and you will discover the point of contact between who you are, and where and when you are. Here is the metaphysical key: discovering the precise intersection between yourself and the rest of the world. This is something individual for you, potentially a spiritual project you’ve been working on for a long time, which now through a diversity of circumstances is about to manifest in an especially tangible way.

You may have many things you would list on a “healing agenda,” which could include anything from physical ailments to your unusual relationship with self-esteem (which for you often manifests as the need to find the right livelihood). Yet despite your excellent image and brave face, a certain kind of insecurity often seems to vex you. Here’s my theory. You are driven to express yourself boldly; at the same time you have a deep fear of not being accepted by others. Yes, many people have a little of this, though you coexist with a rather impressive polarity.

A rare combination of factors is now allowing you to work with both sides of the equation simultaneously. Usually it’s one or the other, rather than getting the equation to balance. The way to do that is to push the limit on the individuality side. Assert yourself boldly, and unapologetically. Then when you feel any fear, uncertainty, guilt, or anxiety about being cast off, confront it just as boldly.

Study your response and tune into who is associated with the emotion you are wrestling. They usually hide in a group of some kind, which blurs their identity. But it’s right there. Feel what you’re feeling and ask directly: Who – Are – You? Then listen, feel and know.


Sagittarius

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — It was the Sagittarian guitar maestro himself, Jimi Hendrix, who asked the world, are you experienced? This is the question that you’re about to open like a portal into a new reality. Your life is now all about having the full experience. Whatever is happening, whatever you’re doing, go all the way in, be that thing, be yourself, and explore. You need no intended outcome or attachment to one. I am talking about pure quest, wherever it may lead. This is so often what you say you live for. It’s what you say you want. Now is the time.

Then there is a second element: you must integrate what you see, feel, do and learn. The best way to accomplish that is to write about it. Tell yourself the story as it happens, and wrap your mind around it. Admit to yourself what you want, what you need, what you do about it, and how you respond. Writing is perhaps the single most powerful form of teaching and learning: which in this scenario means making your experience meaningful to you, and taking full ownership of it.

Maybe you already do this; maybe you have in the past. Yet a rare combination of factors is making this especially potent medicine now. The more bold and honest your quest, the more your written exploration will mean, to you, and eventually, to others. There would be no point, were your physical experiences not so meaningful and distinctive in themselves, and so worthy of expression.

While from one viewpoint, your spirit is reaching out into the wide world, you are needed in your local environment, and that is the place to bring your vision. “Think globally, act locally” may seem like an old adage, though at the moment, it is the thing that will get results — and it’s all we can do.


Capricorn

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Saturn’s re-entry into your birth sign on July 1 begins a crucial phase of cleaning up old business. You’ve had a glimpse of the future with Saturn’s brief visit to Aquarius, which started March 21. You may have a better sense than others that there is a world beyond the one that we now know; that there are possibilities and opportunities and a measure of freedom that just does not seem possible now.

Yet activating this for yourself is dependent upon resolving certain matters that have been lingering around, and others that have been calling for your attention. This not about “fixing your whole life.” Rather, you are responsible for tying up several important loose ends, in a sensitive and thoughtful way.

This will mostly involve your family, or said another way, working with your family history. This has been a persistent theme, particularly since early 2018 when Chiron crossed the sensitive home and security angle of your solar chart.

What you’ve been in the process of doing is taking full ownership of yourself from those you perhaps rightfully recognized tried to take it from you. Yet now you’re an adult, and this is not something that can be done without your cooperation. Therefore, do not cooperate “with them” and instead, cooperate with yourself.

To do that, you would need to be in agreement with yourself about the nature of the problem, and also the nature of the solution. You don’t have the answers you need now, though what you can bring is your openness; you can bring your modest willingness. You will recognize potential points of closure and completion when you see them, or rather, when you feel them. Whatever else you may do, approach every situation gently, and with being open to forgiving yourself. There’s no one else you can forgive.


Aquarius

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Saturn’s brief foray into your birth sign for the first time in a generation has you in truly unusual territory: as much for what is happening as for what you’re preparing for. There are aspects of yourself you had little concept could change, or that you wanted them to, and that is the very pattern that is being rewritten. At times you may feel like the Wicked Witch of the West getting a bucket of water dumped on her, though it’s not all that bad.

If you do, that’s a measure of your resistance, and your adhesion to what has become uncomfortably crystallized. This has consumed your energy, and has taken a toll on your relationships — the one that you could not explain.

There’s something much better possible, which is embodied by one of the most essentially beautiful placements in astrology, Saturn in Aquarius.

To sum up: when you have substance, you can relax, which means to be flexible. Integrity bends: that’s why skyscrapers stay standing; they move with the wind. A little is all you need, or need to begin with. You will find this comportment to be a relief given all the tumult you’ve been through in these years of Pluto in Capricorn (2008-present), Saturn in Capricorn (2017 through this year) and their meeting on Jan. 12. These represent a seemingly endless sequence of tectonic level shifts.

You have no doubt gone through an inner odyssey, one that a few times you thought might never end. You are now seeing the potential for resolution. This will call forth all of your maturity, your sensitivity, and your willingness to become something and someone not exactly new, but truer to your form: the person you’ve always wanted to be.


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

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — In recent years there’s been an interesting dance between the you the world sees, and the you whom you are inside. Ideally these are the same being; how you express your inner/outer dualism has a number of potential causes, and influences. What is so interesting is that you’ve done most of your growth where everyone can see you, rather than in the seclusion of your psyche.

This has placed you in a rare position to be transparent, and to express yourself shorn of the reticence or embarrassment that most feel when they reveal what would ordinarily be the private.

Still, measure your words and stay on message. The word ‘values’ is perhaps overused, though it means your personal constitution, and your code of ethics. Stay in touch with this at all times. Make sure your choices and your words reflect your deepest underlying code of honor.

One of the most severe disruptions to the world involves community and the ability of people to associate with one another. This is where your chart is the most radiant at the moment. That, in turn, is a point of leadership on the social level, which is now firmly in the realm of the spiritual. The astrology involved is the ongoing series of Jupiter-Pluto conjunctions in Capricorn — your classical planet aligning with one representing the soul of the world.

People are looking to you as a way to tune their awareness, so you therefore must relax and be a clear channel. Let the light and wisdom pass through you. Stay in contact with that element of life that is deeper than yourself, more powerful than your own strength. It’s an awareness that is not ‘normal consciousness’ though something that you can tap into at any time. Remember the teaching of A Course in Miracles: “You will be told everything you need to know.”

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