Adapted from Cosmic Confidential by Eric Francis.
From mid-December through mid-January are some of the most whirlwind months of astrology in recent memory, and that is saying a lot. The nice part is that we who honor astrology can actually use it as a tool to make our lives a little easier.
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We are approaching simultaneous Mercury and Mars retrogrades, a lunar eclipse, a solar eclipse, two Jupiter conjunctions and finally a sign change of Jupiter. Uranus is now on a clear course for Aries, turning over one of the most significant cycles in all of astrology.
Moving through the next six weeks will require skill, awareness and the maturity to slow down and make conscious choices. In those moment when you find yourself acting like a robot, pull the plug and resume being human. You’re always just one thought away.
In all of this astrology, there is a huge cosmic and psychological push to make, rather than delay, progress. Only you know what you’re avoiding. Only you know what you really want. As I have said many times, the planetary momentum only builds from here, though presently we are at a decision point; an entry ramp into the momentum.
This article is designed as a planning tool. All of these events fall in different solar houses for the 12 signs, and shake out a different way based on your real natal chart. The Sun sign astrology is one of the key themes of Cosmic Confidential, the 2010 annual edition, and I cover it thoroughly in there as a theme for the entire year and into 2011.
I can say this for everyone, regardless of your astrological tribe: Mercury retrograde in Capricorn is about getting our business affairs in order. This is accelerated and emphasized by a solar eclipse in that sign, on the North Node. There is something here about taking all things Capricorn not as something ‘out there’ but rather as something interior, for which we are personally responsible.
Mars retrograde in Leo is about defining ourselves as individuals, in the aspect of breaking our habit of pride-based conformity. Mars in Leo will take us deep into ourselves, and if we are willing to accept the mission, we can stand apart from the crowd, with integrity. It’s an invitation to live in such a way that offers us some freedom from what we think people think about us, and worse, the pride that makes us care at all.
Mars retrograde in Leo is associated with a Chiron-like planet called Hylonome, which says: be careful about self-inflicted injuries. Watch your psychological patterns and beware of what you do to yourself.
Continued in the Subscriber Edition. Sign up for the hottest online astrology service.
 Weekly Horoscope for Friday, December 4, 2009, #795 – BY ERIC FRANCIS |
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Dear Friend and Reader:
Astrology often seems to happen all at once, and if you’ve been wondering why this was such a strange, exciting or nerve-wracking week, we are in a pretty significant cluster.
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Overnight Tuesday to Wednesday was the Full Moon in most time zones within our readership, and this event has had a significant ripple effect. The same day, Uranus stationed direct after a long retrograde.
Due to a conjunction between the Sun and a Chiron-like planet called Pholus, certain factors in your life (and indeed, in the world) may seem to be quickly running out of control. You may not be able to “get control” but you can do your best to see the situation for what it is, and create a vision for what you want, or what you need.
We are taught to worry about trivial things, and to run from the important ones. Part of what we now need to do is prioritize. We’re also taught to over-emphasize the value of fear, and to think that love is scary. If you find love scary, you might benefit from placing the emphasis in your life on trust, and letting that fill in for what you used to think of as love. Trust is partly intuitive, and it’s partly based on a track record with someone that is built over time.
In challenging moments, it’s important to remember who you trust, and go to them. But it’s more important to trust yourself; to remember who you are, and why you are on the planet, and focus on that. If you don’t think you know, trust that you’ve merely forgotten and need to remember rather than learn something new. This remembering is another way of saying have faith in yourself. This is a skill, and one that is learned over time. But the first step is often the most challenging, and the most rewarding.
Most of the pain we experience in life, we inflict on ourselves. Many current aspects suggest that we need to be careful about this. We can help ourselves by being more introspective; by spending more time with our thoughts and feelings, rather than merely reacting to them.
Something else to keep in mind when we’re in challenging times is to be conscious of how we describe our problems. Notice that there are two ways to do this. One is to state the issue in a way that it seems impossible to solve. The other is to state the problem in a way that it is possible to solve. In this, you have a choice.
Yours & truly,
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Aries (March 20-April 19)
Should you take that risk and go the distance? Or is discretion the better part of valor? These days, the latter expression rings true. You are being reminded to do things for their own sake, rather than for appearances or for the sense of glory. You are being reminded that the deepest risks are the ones you take with your ideas about who you are, rather than what you want to impress others with. For a Westerner, this kind of adjustment can be a shock. I dread to think how many people think someone is a ‘better person’ because they have a more expensive car. Yet these illusions are falling apart fast, and you want to be ahead of the curve. Make sure you stick to reality, in your relationship to yourself, and your relationship to everyone else.
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Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
Most people are so busy this time of year there is no time to live from the center of their being. If you are caught on the treadmill and don’t feel you have time to really be yourself and explore your favorite things in life, you’re missing out on what for you is one of the richest phases of astrology for many months. We tend to think we lack time; much of what we really lack is awareness and availability. Paying attention is so cheap, it actually doesn’t cost anything, which will appeal to your thrifty nature. But these days it has a high return value, and you’re likely to get results fast. Problems are better solved by ideas than by labor. Erotic exploration is more natural when we’re spontaneous and responsive. Creativity is like a cat. If we feed her, she keeps coming back.
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Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
Often we hold back on being real because once you start, where does it end? Well, it may not; it could become a way of life. Another concern: in choosing authenticity, there can be that uncomfortable recognition that one was not so real in the past. Now something is seducing you to bring your deepest self to the forefront of your existence. That something might range from it feels good to you’re curious to see what might happen. Something will indeed happen; your choices will influence your environment, touch the people around you and most of all, affect your perception of yourself. You may discover something profoundly important to you that you had not noticed in the past. Yet it’s only fair of me to remind you that once you move forward, there is no turning back.
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If you want to add a few friends, call Chelsea and we will offer you a really good bulk discount for signing up three or more friends — and extend your subscription too!
PS Len…my car is somehow reconstructed and once again getting me around to the places most necessary (that I cannot reach by bike or foot without a day’s journey to do so.)
In accordane to the Lightness of Experience Eric discusses in his essay – this situation could easily have been crisis. What made the difference is knowing that I have done (along the way) all that it seemed appropriate and/or possible to do and in this moment, I understood that the control I had was to ask for what I needed, and whether or not the car ended up reparied – it wasn’t going to be the end of the world (mechanic would either find away to patch it back to operational or not and there was no crisis regardless.
Other experiences fit neatly into the astrology (as if anything fits “neatly” with crisp corners all tucked in!) and now as before, I find it all truly fascinating and find that I am truly blessed to be experiencing all that I am, and be sharing it here with all of you.
Linda
Len, ‘old man’ you may be (LOL!) but not “silly” for mentioning Marvin Gaye (but then, I grew up listening to him – and I’M not old…I’m definitely Silly, but not Old.)
Anyway, Marvin and I take a walk together every day (his songs you mention and more on my mp3) and I agree he does resonate with Eric and with today, for sure. Lots of “old” wisdom in those lyrics! What will we manifest differently this time?
When I first read this on my phone, I literally held my breath … it was like reading a thriller novel …
though this is far more exciting as it’s for real and it’s happening in our inner & outer world NOW & for some time to come.
I’ve rarely felt the experience where I’m able to ‘read’ yet simultaneously witness the reflection happening within & have mind thoughts in recognition & understanding about what my mind is absorbing as well as saying, YES I felt that, YES I’m feeling this, YES I said that too last year.
Eric has tapped into the Living Information in the Cosmos & streamed it to us in the most dynamic, practical & digestible way possible.
I must admit, sometimes when I read his loquacious postings, I scroll thru fast over ‘extra bits’ as I live in the UK I can feel left out of certain references & not all is relevant. Not so with this fundamental piece of astrological magnificence, there was not one extra word & it was perfect for the world audience & the individual.
Have retweeted this post, read it out loud to anyone within grabbing distance telling them not to underestimate it’s importance – that it is accurately describing where we’re at (I’ve been saying similar if not the same things & wondering if I was a lone crazy – as you can imagine was so relieved to see the word sanity)
& we now have the reference points for our inner & outer journey … ROLL ON 2010 Cosmic Confidential I’m feeling more confident about taking my steps to the future …
THANK YOU ERIC – TRULY INSPIRED & INSPIRING (17.10.68 0824 Plymouth, Devon UK)
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3222722/Ascension%20Conspiracy.zip
This is a link to download a .zip file containing 5 of my songs that were deeply inspired by the writing on Planetwaves. They are part of a concept album which is almost complete that deals with my struggle to overcome the emotional prison I built to survive my youth. Copy and paste to your browser, hit enter and the download should start automatically. Made entirely on an iMac with Logic Studio 8. All instruments by me except sax on Web of Life by my friend Johnie Ward. All lyrics by me except Schitzified which was a collaboration with my friend Sarah Cosman. Enjoy.
Maybe i’m just turning into a silly old man, but i could vividly hear the voice of the late, great Marvin Gaye singing while i read Eric’s Friday Edition. Those of you out there who are not subscribers – this would be a good time to start so that you can read the rest of what Eric has to say and see how he masterfully threads a common theme through the weekly horoscopes.
Back to Marvin Gaye. As Eric alluded to today, the last time we saw anything resembling like this Saturn-Pulto-Uranus dynamic, we were hearing him sing about “What’s goin’ on” – we all knew deep down but few would cop to it. In addition it’s almost spooky to listen to the song “Sexual healing” then read Eric’s insights on conscious intimacy, Chiron in Aquarius, etc and realize that nearly half a century seperate them.
You who lived through it, want to remember the sho’ `nuff Sixties? Listen to Marvin again. Those of you too young to remember, download Mr. Gaye’s fine work on your MP3, plug in the ear buds, turn it down, lower the lights and put your feet up and let the man’s voice into your heart – you will be the richer for it. Those of you born in the Sixties will find Marvin somewhere in your DNA, you can bet on it.
Your writing this week pops and sizzles Eric. The super conjunction in Aquarius is trine my ascendant at 21libra as I work on dismantling the fear I inherited from all 4 of my grandparents and the verbal abuse I received as a teenager from my stepdad. I’m in my last year of an art degree that has me mostly feeling disillusioned with the art world, but I’m trying to keep my head afloat, finish my degree and put together an identity that can enable me to sustain food, shelter and all that when there’s no more financial aid. The ideas transmitted through your writing have helped me to understand the way the lack of trust you spoke about in Libra’s horoscope has pulled my strings for so long where I have a hard time synthesizing a solid place in the world, running from one thing to another, unconsciously obeying stepdad’s insistence that anything I want to do (music, art, writing) isn’t fit work for a man. Is that my 5th house Pholus in Pisces?
Well anyway, keep up the wonderful work. You rock my world.
Eric, Great Edition! Thank you!
Trust.
Perhaps this is me taking yet another emotional point and getting too far up into my head with it – but I have long now considered Trust to be something Fluid like many things Piscean. That is, I Trust different people in different ways for different things. I use Trust to identify just how far I Feel I can go with a partcular person in a particular relationship.
Trust is an awesome thing. As you say, Eric – displacing “Love” with Trust gives a perspective on our relationships that our relationship with the idea of “love” does not give us.
Trust. Trust in Yourself. Then discover how you Trust in another person, another event, another situation. The world will turn.
XO and thanks once again.
Mars in Leo will take us deep into ourselves, and if we are willing to accept the mission, we can stand apart from the crowd, with integrity.
Yes. O my goddess, yes. Still in the liminality, since Saturday. Amazing confluence of events for me, starting early that morning. And still there. O yes.
Well it retrogrades back in, so it’s actually longer…I have never studied the cycle closely but I am sure that on average, it averages out…jupiter has a stable, not that elliptical orbit. It may be at perihelion. Would you like to check that? If you google “jupiter perihelion” you might get some hits back. Charts for Jupiter s/r and Jupiter s/d enclosed via email
xx
Dear Eric
Sunny hello from Brooklyn! Hope you had a good Thanksgiving…
I am intrigued that Jupiter will be transiting Pisces for only 6
months- how is this possible? Typically, Jupiter takes 12 months to
transit a sign. What do you make of that?
Val
Eric!
Hello! I just received today’s Friday edition – I’ve not even finished reading it properly (I’m supposed to be working ahem!!) but it’s absolutely fantastic! Looking forward to pondering it all this evening 🙂
I’m loving what’s going on and really feel the like-minded coming together in my small part of the world – community and friends – (also really feeling the struggle of others) I’m ready to spread the love and refuse to give in to the tiny part of me that I can only describe as ‘free-floating anxiety’ – pah to that I say! 😉 It feels huge and mysterious and exciting and magnificent to me! I’m lucky to be alive right now!
Jupiter and Chiron make their one and only exact alignment on Monday, and then Jupiter goes on to make its conjunction to Neptune on the solstice. This is a subtle series of events that is more obvious as an internal shift than as an external one. I would describe it as a rapid acceleration or focusing of spiritual growth; of awareness of and contact with the unseen world, and with subtle energies; and a gift of both healing and evolution that feels like an alignment with sanity. This focus on Aquarius tells us that people who can work, grow and love together are finding one another. And we’re being reminded that it is time to reach out.
And the last 3 paragraphs are beautiful! I feel a sense of mission here – get it right within myself and take it out there and show what faith can do – I feel the need to SHARE in my little part of the world. You are so right – life is opening up – exciting times and I feel very, very priviledged to be able to receive such guidance from you and the PW community (lovely Len!) – My astrological knowledge is pretty non-existent but I FEEL stuff going on and being able to read PW output and understand things better is fantastic!
Keep on rockin in the free world 🙂
With love and gratitude
xAnnie
Good Morning Eric:
Thank you for this. I’m so excited about Cosmic Confidential. Sounds like it’s going to be the Most Excellent so far.
There is an apparent paradox in these developments. The world is going through some wild gyrations, many people are in pain, and yet certain individuals have never felt clearer or safer, though recognizing the fragile edge we live on. That’s me!!! When I wrote you about Pisces I had mentioned that the last 10 years had been really rough, but now I feel like I’m finally, finally getting a break and I intend to enjoy every minute of it while it lasts.
Maybe this has something to do with my second Saturn return? I finally figured out how to register so I can comment on the site (duhhh) so if you still want the info I will comment on my first and what I think may be going on with my second return.
Anyway, thank you for today’s offering. Delicious as usual.
(I see Judith is missing. I hope everything is okay with her.)
Good Morning Dear Chelsea!
Lynda