Whatever Happened to Holistic Principle?

Dear Friend and Reader:

With the Sun in Virgo, the notion of “holistic” is on my mind. So is the Goddess: Virgo is the sign of Gaia, the organism once known as the living Earth. In a poem written toward the end of her career, Adrienne Rich wrote in her 1991 work Dark Fields of the Republic, "Because you still listen, because in times like these / to have you listen at all, it’s necessary / to talk about trees."

Times have changed a bit, though I would like to talk about birds, and the discovery of the ecosystem. I credit another of the 20th century’s great woman poets with discovering that facet of nature, and explaining it to us, and to President Kennedy, who took action based on what he learned.

The ecosystem was not really a known thing before the book Silent Spring came out. Carson, a marine biologist and avid birder, set out to figure out why, one year, the entire forest around her home went quiet. Previously it had been flooded with the sounds of songbirds.

What she discovered is that all of nature is connected. And she discovered the power of DDT, a chemical that was broadcast sprayed around the world, on forests and homes, and streets and beaches and swimming pools, in an attempt to eradicate mosquitoes. I cannot recommend this book enough: it is the kind that changes your life and your worldview in a few hours of reading. Here is my retrospective from 2012.

The writing and the message of Silent Spring were so powerful that the book got the attention of then Pres. John F. Kennedy, who referred it to his Science Advisory Panel. They studied the scientific assessments in the book and a year later determined that Carson’s work was based on valid toxicology. This led to a 1972 ban on DDT in agricultural use in the United States — though not until after 600,000 tons of the stuff had been dumped on the environment. Once the DDT issue came to public awareness, many other events followed, which helped raise awareness of toxins and begin the process of regulating them — at least for a while.

All of Nature is Interconnected — Including Us

The broadcast spraying of DDT did little to affect the mosquito and moth populations in the long run. And it killed a lot of fish in lakes and rivers. Viruses, bacteria and bugs are the smartest and hardiest creatures on Earth. But what happened was that the poison soaked into the leaves of the trees, then the leaves fell to the forest floor and became peat. Then the worms lived in and ate the decomposing foliage, and then the birds ate the worms, and the insecticide concentrated in their bodies. As a result, they could not produce young. It also caused many other problems.

Another scientist — I am fairly certain it was Robert Risebrough (who, like Carson, loved birds and was considered a mortal enemy by Monsanto and other chemical firms) — figured out how this happens. He discovered that the DDT absorbed by the birds was causing their eggshells to be abornaily thin, and the chicks could not survive. As a direct result of Carson’s work, a Swedish chemist named Soren Jensen (who I had the privilege of interviewing for an hour for Sierra magazine) discovered the contamination of the entire environment by PCBs. His discovery led to the banning of those chemicals by an act of Congress in 1976.

We learn many lessons from this chain of events: a toxin that was supposed to kill a theoretically harmful insect did not have the desired effect, and instead rapidly moved through the food chain (a concept Carson introduced to the public), and got into the birds through their food, concentrated in their bodies, and had a hormonal (endocrine) effect, which affected one particular aspect of their reproduction. For humans, the impact is much more complex, subtle and devastating.

At the time Silent Spring came out, Rachel Carson was cast as a public enemy, and an enemy of progress. In the words of F. A. Soraci, then director of the New Jersey Department of Agriculture, “In any large-scale pest control program we are immediately confronted with the objection of a vociferous, misinformed group of nature-balancing, organic-gardening, bird-loving, unreasonable citizenry that has not been convinced of the important place of agricultural chemicals in our economy.”

Carson was undaunted. She wrote, “A Who's Who of pesticides is therefore of concern to us all. If we are going to live so intimately with these chemicals eating and drinking them, taking them into the very marrow of our bones — we had better know something about their nature and their power.”

Through the 1990s, another scientist, Dr. Theodora Colborn, mapped out these endocrine effects of DDT, PCBs, dioxin and many other chemicals (most of them plasticizers) in humans. Her book is called Our Stolen Future. By then, times had changed. Today, nearly everything we eat is wrapped in plastic. Endocrine disrupting chemicals have measurable effects at the parts-per-trillion level.

Holistic Means Honoring the Whole

Anyone who recognizes the holistic principle understands that to attempt to eradicate one seeming pest will have far-reaching and unintended consequences. The antithesis to this is whole-system thinking, which is what we get in Virgo at its best.

The Coxing at full flood stage, perhaps not as full-on as when it carried glacial runoff. This was in 2011 after Hurricane Irene came through town. Normally the area to the upper left of the photo is an exposed bedrock streamed where you may have a nice picnic. There is still evidence of that flood visible throughout the forest floor if you know what to look for.

There are many names for this: one of them is synergy: the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Another is biophilia, which is closely related, and includes the compelling attraction humans may feel for living systems like forests, and for life itself. Biophilia is a tropism. When we are sane and healthy, humans reach for life like plants reach for light and water. We feel a natural longing to connect with the greater whole.

This is the ground where healing is possible. It is the only ground that supports growth and evolution. Spraying chemical poisons does not help the world, nor does carpet bombing, nor does waging all-out war on a little fragment of genetic sequence.

But this takes maturity. As Edward Wilson writes in Biophilia, "To explore and affiliate with life is a deep and complicated process in mental development. To an extent still undervalued in philosophy and religion, our existence depends on this propensity, our spirit is woven from it, hope rises on its currents.”

These are not merely words. There is a reason people flock to national parks, and keep gardens, and visit seashores. They want to experience the beauty and power of nature.

To me, that is what Virgo is about, on the deepest and most primal level. It is about us, as well. Our bodies are ecosystems. What we do to them affects us in many ways we cannot immediately observe and do not understand.

“We stand now where two roads diverge,” Carson wrote in Silent Spring. "But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road — the one less traveled by — offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the Earth.”

How we treat ourselves is going to teach us how to treat the planet. How we treat the planet is how we treat ourselves, because we are one with the Earth.

Today more than ever, we need to remember this, for ourselves and for our children. It would seem we have all but forgotten about it: and by we, I am speaking to many of my colleagues who are holistic practitioners, those who are lovers of non-GMO food, and people who would never spray a toxic poison on a forest. We are the ones who need to wake up and remember.

Faithfully,



Note to Readers: I covered the Sun’s ingress into Virgo in a new article published Friday. That came with the Full Moon horoscope. The New Moon horoscope was published in early August. I will have the next horoscope in time for the Virgo New Moon late next week. Frequent coverage of astrology is in the STARCAST podcast.




Midyear Reading from Planet Waves
Going Through Changes? Want to Feel Better? Looking for Ideas? Astrology Can Help.

Dear Friend and Reader:

We have all been through many changes the past 18 months. The astrology was brutal, at times almost violent. The sky has cooled off some and we can now catch up with the many areas of our lives calling for adjustments and offering opportunities.

Eric Francis.

We are happy to announce Metamorphosis, the 2021 Midyear Reading from Planet Waves. Personally relevant, easy to understand, engaging and motivating, don’t miss the next great 12-sign special reading from Eric Francis.

Binge Watch this Astrology Mini-Series!

This is a set of half-hour videos for your Sun, Moon, and rising signs — and those of the people close to you. Think of this as the missing Netflix mini-series focused on astrology, personal growth and self-actualization.

Using astrology and my reading of the world, I will help you get accustomed to all this new Aquarian energy, which will be with us for the long-haul, until 2044. This reading includes a preview of 2022 astrology.

How do we continue to grow as individuals with all of this group-focused energy? That will be put to the test with some powerful Mars aspects this fall, and Jupiter dancing between Aquarius and Pisces.

All 12 are now available for the pre-sale price of $88 for all 12 (regularly $111, you can now get 12 for the price of three individual signs). We encourage sharing within your household or small circle, and the reading will come with instructions explaining how to do that.

This Reading is Included with the Backstage Pass

We are planning to deliver the reading by the Libra equinox — possibly sooner (such as if we publish two groups of six signs).

Note, this reading is included with the Backstage Pass. Purchase any BSP — monthly, quarterly or yearly — and this set of readings is included. Note that all Backstage Passes include your natal chart and the upper tier includes a personal reading.

Thank you for your preorder. Proceeds from this reading will help support all of Planet Waves during our slow season. Thank you for your business and your trust.



Planets in Motion, my new e-Book, provides you with information you can only get from a professional reading — if the astrologer sees the aspects and can read them. I’ve searched the charts going back many years to come up with more than 20 transits happening to people now, ages 1-84.

Eric Francis in Mykonos. Photo by Christos Katzios.

I write in easy-to-follow language, and bring astrology to life. This book covers many different age ranges, and many people in your life. This product comes with an audio introduction to the topic to help you get oriented and learn the value of transits. This book is also rich with interpretations of natal placements involved in those transits. It is a valuable, one-of-a-kind astrological resource.

You will read about the first and second Saturn return and related transits, Uranian opposition, Chiron Return and related transits, and then many subtle events that are specialized to specific years of birth.

There are sidebars covering major events in the early 1990s, the early 1960s, and the mid-1950s and how they relate to right now.

Astrology for people of all ages — including those born from 1980 through 2005

Transits listed in this e-Book will be relevant for many people in your life, young and old. We finally have a resource on people born between 1980 and 2000 — the seemingly-elusive Millennial generation. Many chapters are devoted to the astrology of people born during this time. There is a special focus on the events and astrology of 1999, as well as many entries for people born in the early 21st century.

I also include many free astrology resources, including my own articles and a prior e-Book called Light Bridge. The cover is by Lanvi Nguyen and as we update the PDF, we will add more art. There will be one major revision including the addition of sample charts for the year at the center of each transit. That will take some time, though that upgrade will be available free.

Comes with introductory audio on transits

The e-Book comes with an introductory audio that orients you on the subject, and succinctly presents my transit-based approach to reading natal charts

YOU WILL LOVE IT! This book will become a cornerstone of your astrological understanding, and will stand up to many readings.

Here is how to order now. The book and audio are done, posted and available now!