Posted on July 9, 2020 | Link to original
Dear Friend and Reader:
We continue to burn astrology like firewood during a cold winter. The first few weeks of summer were impressive, with three eclipses, Mercury retrograde and Jupiter conjunct Pluto (square Eris). We have seen the results in the form of increasing levels of anxiety and panic throughout American society.
This is coupled by disinformation chaos to a degree that I have never seen in all the time I’ve been doing my form of journalism, which is always just adjacent to the mainstream media. This is unsettling for anyone. It’s so challenging that it takes a room full of us studying every day to keep a grip on the developments, sort out the contradictions and figure out what is going on.
We are witnessing panic for the sake of panic. I know the numbers look horrendous, but you will get some perspective if you dismantle the statistics and see what is behind them. The facts as presented in the "news” these days are so devoid of context that it’s as if yesterday is forgotten, last week never happened and there is no tomorrow. If you stick to today, you can learn something relevant.
First, Publishing Schedule Upgrade
We have an interesting weekend and following week coming up, and I’ve got a short summary for you. First, a note about our publishing schedule.
I’m planning to move the Sunday night edition (a somewhat new thing, which has run the past 237 consecutive weeks) to Monday night. This is in service of me having some time off during the weekend. We actually began that last week by delaying a day for the July 4 holiday. It worked so well, I decided to call it an invention.
I am also planning to move Planet Waves FM back to Friday nights, as part of my ‘clear the weekend’ project. We’ve been running Sunday nights for more than two years, though it’s not necessary. My long-format program is a weekend thing, and Friday night will suit just fine.
Finally, I am planning not to publish on Thursday, July 16. We will send out a reminder at the time.
Also, Major Website Upgrade
Everyone knows that Planet Waves commerce technology is not Amazon.com. We use a system originally built in 2007 that is now at the end of its useful life. Fortunately, for the past 18 months we have been in the process of upgrading our primary website, sales system and customer database.
The main benefits of this include our customers having one account, instead of all products having their own account. All new articles and readings will be delivered to the appropriate customers in your own personal area.
That work is about 85% done and 100% paid for. We did this pay-as-you-go, without any fundraising. We’ve been at this now for about a year and a half. We are about two or three weeks from initiating the beta test. We will send out an invitation seeking people who want to participate in that.
Then we will need a few “community ambassadors” to help shepherd other customers over. Our little staff will benefit from your help. Please stand by for another letter with the subject header WEBSITE UPGRADE — just like that, in all caps.
You can see the new website here, without the back-end connected. Please do something old fashioned and explore — there are some excellent resources, articles and archives. We are aware that most of our clients rely on these emails for delivery of your services, and we are planning to keep sending them. I rarely see publications this beautiful in my inbox, and I am a bit attached to our presentation. However, the website is an important benefit of membership and also a public resource. Thank you for visiting.
And now for a little astrology.
Mercury Stations Direct on Sunday Morning
Mercury has been retrograde in Cancer since June 18, during the long-forgotten solstice cluster. We are now in range of Mercury stationing direct, which occurs at 4:26 am EDT on Sunday, July 12.
This has been a relatively calm Mercury retrograde, compared with the previous one (in Pisces, Feb 16 through March 9), associated with events leading to the unprecedented global lockdown. The current retrograde in Cancer has come with the global unlockdown, which does not seem to be going well in the United States. Mercury has been retrograde in the 8th house of the U.S. chart (money, death, taxes).
Speaking of, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Pres. Trump has to turn over his financial records and tax returns to prosecutors in New York. This touches upon the taxes issue of the U.S. 8th house, as well as the "truth revealed” property of Mercury stationing direct. There is probably more to come.
Anger Management, Family Business
You might think of this as the anger management Mercury direct. Mercury is in the process of making a series of tense aspects to Mars in Aries as the retrograde ends. The real issue with Mercury square Mars is taking your anger out on yourself, and therefore, not directing it appropriately. This is the basic equation of how abuse in early life results in pain and dysfunction later in life.
If responsibility for past events is not investigated and resolved, it’s likely to be experienced as self-blame, guilt and resentment. These emotions make it difficult or impossible to relate to others in a trusting way. So if you’re wondering where all this rage and mistrust comes from, there is a theory.
We see this in the current chart as Mercury stationing direct right in the mix of the ultra-slow moving Pholus, Quaoar, Salacia, Logos pattern early in the cardinal signs. This is about sexual behavior within the family pattern, which is the root of all trauma, transgression and harmful impulse. Yet the pattern goes back generations — you can tell from the presence of Pholus and Quaoar.
Pholus points to matters that go back three generations, and are compounded by alcohol abuse. Quaoar takes us all the way back to the origins of the tribe. We are dealing with very old stuff here.
It would be nice to make some progress resolving this, though people tend to be so freaked out about sex they cannot have a rational conversation about it. Even the discussion can be considered "re-traumatizing,” so the most common thing that happens is suppression of the discussion, followed by the eruption of controversy and violence.
I’ll have more to say about this during the Vesta Studio portion of Planet Waves FM this weekend, where I can be a little bolder about my approach to healing these kinds of issues than I can in writing. Meet me there to continue the conversation.4
Mars Conjunct Chiron: The Initiation
We are about to experience the first Mars conjunction to Chiron in Aries. The most recent conjunction of Mars to Chiron occurred in late Pisces on Dec. 29, 2018, during Chiron’s transition from Pisces to Aries. Mars and Chiron are conjunct about every two years, following the cycle of Mars.
I could say a lot about this aspect — it’s one of my favorites of the lot, inviting the full activation of Chiron by Mars. However, in Aries, this aspect has special meaning. That’s because I consider Aries to be the scene of the crime where electrical technology has turned people into a swarm of tribal robots.
This aspect, exact July 14, can have a few possible manifestations. Under the best circumstances (balanced person, communicative environment), it’s about the healthy and bold expression of individuality. Chiron’s mission is to turn injuries and wounds into healing gifts. This happens over time, with experience and maturity.
Under less ideal circumstances, this aspect could provoke a deep feeling of injury, related to the sensation of loss of identity. As the McLuhans have noted, violence is an attempt to find one’s identity. Total immersion in electrical technology, particularly digital technology, has gone a long way to deplete people’s sense of being.
So this could also result in the eruption of aggression and conflict as associated with being clueless about one’s actual reality — which would be a misplaced attempt to "find oneself.” I guess we have to resort to desperate measures after living online for 20 years — that makes anything and everything in the physical world too dangerous to even consider.
In the end, that is what we’re experiencing with this whole virus thingie: the reason it’s the result of digital consciousness is not just that it’s been amplified and distorted by social media and 24-hour news feeds, which make it impossible to tell which way is up, unless you work with a research team.
The real crisis is that from the cool, clean, and most of all disembodied standpoint of the digital universe, anything pertaining to the body is diseased and disgusting. And that has taken us a long way from home.
With love,
