Dear Friend and Reader:
This is one of the most interesting astrological weeks of an interesting year — complete with all the implications of the Chinese curse. Before I get into the astrology, I want to repeat my caution that we are, in these weeks and months, setting the pattern of our lives for the next 24 years of Aquarius astrology.
Right now, old patterns are being broken and new ones are taking hold. Whether it seems so or not, this is all a matter of choice: mostly, of how to respond to our environment. Yes, the environment creates most of what we experience, but it exists in a dynamic with your awareness. That little zone is where we make the transition from “fate” to “free will” if it can be made at all. To the extent that you have influence over your life, and we have influence over our collective lives, it happens in the space where environment and awareness meet.
I know that this can be argued from a dozen different spiritual and allegedly spiritual positions. I know that there are people who argue that the awareness and decisions are meaningless, though I am not one of them. If you are traveling on an unfamiliar highway, and it’s getting dark and it’s raining, and the road is narrow and you’re surrounded by trucks, what do you do?
You pay attention and drive the car. In that situation, you know that every decision you make counts. You know that panic and other forms of attention lapse are dangerous. You are avoiding an accident as much for yourself as you are for everyone else.
Reminder: Aquarian Era Approaching Rapidly
Bear in mind as we live through this autumn’s astrology and enter the Aquarian Era of 2021-2044, we have just (barely, partially) come out of an event where the whole Northern Hemisphere was placed under martial law. You may not see it that way, though that’s what a “stay at home” order is. That’s what mandatory shutting of businesses is: something that was rampant during the Holocaust by the way.
This scenario coincided directly with Saturn in Aquarius for those three months. Whether you think it was for a good reason or not, appropriate or not, based on the truth or not, martial law and stripping people of their livelihood is not the Aquarius of peace and love. Making healthy people into de facto “national security risks” is not the Aquarius of peace and love.
Now we are in a discussion of (meaning development and implementation of) technology that includes everything from the Covi-Pass to messenger RNA vaccines that rewrite your genetic code, to cameras and temperature checks everywhere, to nanorobots that report your bodily data to central computer systems.
How very Aquarian! But not the kind that happened at the Woodstock Festival. Imagine someone getting up in front of a quarter-million hippies and announcing: in just 50 years, big corporations will be getting government contracts to inject little tiny computers into your blood, which can read your biological data, influence your thinking, and which can never be removed.
Therefore, I would suggest: choose your Aquarius. Choose for yourself and for your neighbors, because we are all in this together. Remember: Pluto in Aquarius is on its way. Do we evolve out of our technological adolescence as a conscious collective act, or do we let a bunch of petulant billionaires run their control drama on our lives, our bodies and our relationships?
Those are the choices as I see them.
Mercury Retrograde: How To Change Your Mind
Tuesday night at 9:05 pm EDT, Mercury stations retrograde in fixed sign Scorpio. This evokes the image of “changing one’s mind.” You might think that thought would be the most flexible substance, though it turns out that it’s one of the most rigid.
There are many reasons for this, though it’s especially notable under digital conditions. Digital as well would presumably create flexibility. What it creates is polarization. This could be a defense against the vast overload of information, made-up shit, opinions and arguments. It may be more the result of zeros and ones underlying everything in the digital realm. This is a radically different condition than analog technology, where there were at least gradients.
Now, the tendency seems to be for people to pick a camp and stay there — and to defend their position aggressively, under the ethos that all is fair in love and war. There are many reasons for this, including the possibility that to hold a battle line is itself an experiment in self-knowledge. Sometimes the more people dig in, the more doubtful they are.
Mercury stationing retrograde in Scorpio is a jolt to this cosmology. It is something changing within a seemingly stable environment. Scorpio has its own notions of change. Those include mutation, putrefaction (decomposition), and surrender. Scorpio represents the inevitable. Mercury in Scorpio is the idea of the inevitable, including death and hormonal forces.
These would include ongoing death threats that are part of the now normal mental and media environments, which are provoking individual fear of death.
Mingled with this is the ego “death” associated with sexual thoughts, a Mercury in Scorpio idea. One of the reasons that thoughts involving sexuality are so powerful is that they do not respect the boundaries and conventions of relationships. They often transgress those boundaries. As biological beings, our senses and feelings do their thing, regardless of our opinions of right and wrong.
This is one of the reasons why sexual thoughts provoke the fear of society crumbling. From a personal standpoint, for many people, that is true. If they revealed the content of their mind, and their desires, their personal society might crumble. They might also find themselves liberated by radical honesty.
The result is not always destruction but rather progress. We can count the influence of guilt and shame as the bindings of both civility and also of being confined by social norms. It’s not enough for other people to do all the “liberating.” This is not about a Pride Parade. Rather, it’s about the strength that can come only from deep sincerity.
New Moon in Libra — Aspecting Everything
Mercury retrograde ends on Nov. 3, which is Election Day in the United States. After retrograding into Libra on October 27, Mercury jumps right into the pattern of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto, and Eris — that is the chaotic scene on the day the U.S. election is supposed to end, but is unlikely to.
This can present complicated situations, though the idea that comes to mind thinking of this pattern is, borrowing a bit from Jesus, “The truth shall set you free.”
Friday’s New Moon in Libra is close to where Mercury stations direct in three weeks. The Moon and Sun form a conjunction in Libra. The New Moon makes aspects to all of the planets I’ve described above. It is right in the pocket of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Pluto, and Eris.
This is one of those “holy shit” aspect patterns, I must say, though Mercury stationing direct in the same place a few weeks later certainly qualifies.
All one can really say is, look at the world. But the world is doing pretty good compared to the United States, which many days feels like a bomb about to go off. In the background of all of this is the United States Pluto return.
As with all things Pluto, the sensation is grow or die. That should be an easy choice. Mercury stationing retrograde has that vibration as well, though nothing close to the Pluto return. One is about the individual mind; one is about all of society.
We grow ever closer to the place where the two meet.
With love,
Planet Waves (ISSN 1933-9135) is published each Monday and Thursday evening in Kingston, New York, Planet Waves, Inc. Core Community membership: $197/year. Editor & Publisher: Eric F. Coppolino. Web Developer: Anatoly Ryzhenko. News Editor: Spencer Stevens. Assistant Editor: Joshua Halinen. Client Services: Amy Elliott and Victoria Emory. Illustrator: Lanvi Nguyen. Senior Finance Minister, First Cavalry of the Local Economy: Andrew Slater. Archivist: Morgan Francis. Technical Assistants: Cate Ryzhenko, Emily Thing. Proofreading: Jessica Keet. Media Consultant: Andrew McLuhan. Music Director: Daniel Sternstein. Bass and Drums: Daniel Grimsland. Additional Music: Zeljko. Additional Research, Writing and Opinions: Rachel Chaput, Loreen Costa, Robin Dann, Yuko Katori, Kirsti Melto, Cindy Tice Ragusa, Abby Rohrer, and Carol van Strum.
Indigenous Filmmakers Share a Lifeline Through Native Lineage :: Eugene, OR Environmental Film Festival
By ANNA K. BALL
Today, as the earth splits beneath our feet, water is siphoned by human whims, and we are thrown unprepared into the ether of digital conditions, not all that is sane and good is lost. A vast resource is emerging to guide us as we balance on the brink of humanity’s coming of age. Taking their sovereign place in global leadership, Indigenous communities around the world are offering their traditional ecological and cultural knowledge to address the crises humans have manifested on the planet.
One Word Sawalmem and Native Wisdom: The Peoples of Eastern Oregon are two recent documentaries that bring this essential perspective to the general public. In both, we see a contemporary incarnation of Indigenous storytelling traditions. Through the medium of documentary film, One Word Sawalmem embodies twenty minutes of the Winnemem Wintu worldview with a single word. Its early moments blend the rhythms of human song, waters heaving in the San Francisco Bay, and cries of seagulls, compelling us to resonate with the message before we can even name it. The individual voice of Michael “Pom” Preston, narrator and co-director of the film, carries many voices.
Continue Reading Here
We are at the Peak of Mars Retrograde
“Without knowing the issues I’ve been going through, you, Eric, have helped me to put it all into perspective. I can’t help myself, I am who I am! Your encouragement to BE ME is medicine to the heart, cos I lost that footing over the years. Thank you VERY much.”
— S.C., on The Story of I AM midyear 2020 reading
Dear Friend and Reader:
Mars retrograde in Aries is an important season for personal growth.
In Aries, Mars retrograde is about self-realization. It’s about building your confidence. It’s about claiming your soul back from the internet.
We live in serious times. This is for social, political and economic reasons, which are precipitating changes we all have to experience or endure. Yet the astrology provoking these changes is about to become deeply personal, now that Mars retrograde is in the picture.
Mars is about the drive to be human: the human engine, as T.S. Eliot put it. It’s about desire, and need, and also about anger and aggression. Each of us contains all of these emotions, and they are about to be stirred up as Mars makes retrograde aspects to Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn.
Capricorn is the well of family material, which is sure to come up — and rather than seeing this as a problem, I see it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to resolve deep material, or to get a lot of the work out of the way. One rule of healing that I follow is if you have an opportunity to do a large portion of the work in one go, then do it.
I have created a series of astrology sessions for you, called The Story of I AM. You can think of these as video readings, or you can think of them as a series of processing sessions. Each is relevant to you. Your Sun and rising sign are the most helpful, though each and everyone has many gifts for you: ideas, strategies, discussion and analysis of deep personal material.
With warmth, gentleness and imparting the gifts I have gained through long experience, I take you through the material in clear, accessible language.
These days a single therapy session goes for up to $300 some places. For $111, you will have 12 astrology sessions and an introduction providing the background you need to understand what is happening in the planets. These readings will stand up to many playings, and can serve as a turning point in your life.
Please take advantage of this opportunity while you have the leverage to do the work in the most efficient way. We will never pass this way again — and where humanity is headed calls for your full preparation, availability and awareness.
You may purchase single signs here, or all 12 signs here. Free video samples are below!
Thank you for your business, and mostly, for your trust.
With love,
PS — This set of readings is included with the Backstage Pass. If you would like to purchase the Backstage Pass by phone, please call me at (845) 481-5616, up till 8 pm Eastern Time.
Listened to I Am last night. Extraordinary. Have been through Taurus, Leo, Cancer and Aquarius. The confirmatory understanding of the past cycle, the work it has taken to attend to and the nudges I am already feeling about the next phase, so helpful. Seriously, you continue to communicate in such a way that openings and accountability can be digested. I think your work just gets better.
— Customer from Australia
“Firstly I just wanted to say thank you. Listening to your Dharma reading earlier this summer was a real turning point during my lockdown. It gave me so much direction and trust, and acted quite literally like a galvaniser that has got to where I am now. Your weekly and monthly horoscopes are always very helpful for me.”
Here are free five-minute reading samples for each sign:
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Chiron Return, our nonprofit arm, publishes Covid19 News every day, in fact several times a day. We have updated about 740 times since we began publishing on March 3. This old-style news weblog takes a panoramic view of the virus situation. We offer news and viewpoints from a wide diversity of sources, science news, international reporting, videos and other resources to help you see the wide diversity of information not making it onto television or major websites. We are tracking the vaccine and testing issues carefully.
Each Friday night, Chiron Return publishes Planet Waves FM. Running since 2010, with roots into Radio Woodstock in the 1990s, Planet Waves FM covers current events, current astrology, science history, personal growth and other themes. Includes music by Vision Quest, the in-house Planet Waves orchestra.
Planet Waves publishes daily astrology and birthdays through the week. This feature includes a daily extended birthday reading and ongoing commentaries on developing astrology as it happens. Check in whenever you want — no password required.
Going back to February, I’ve developed a portfolio of essays, investigative articles, videos and audio presentations on the Covid situation. These include articles about the astrology of the situation, hand sanitizer, holistic care, social critique and a wide diversity of other topics. We’ve recently added a selection of my satires, such as CDC guidance on blowing kisses. This is a truly comprehensive look at the issues, written from a worldly, nonpolitical standpoint. Here is the link.