Dear Friend and Reader:
Whew! We made it! Eric has finished the last of your sign readings for The Mars Effect, the 2014 annual edition from Planet Waves, and the Planet Waves editorial, artistic and technological teams have proofread, illustrated and coded this project into beautiful existence. It will be ready for your eyes, ears, mind, heart and soul later this evening.
If the last few days have been a whirlwind relay race for the Planet Waves staff, the last few months have been a series of back-to-back ultra-marathons for Eric. He usually begins his research for each annual in August; here we are now in mid-January, with an astrological publication unlike anything else you’ll find on the Web.
I’m still not entirely sure how Eric manages to create such extensive, accurate, prescient and thought-provoking readings on top of the mountain of writing he already does on a weekly basis. Diligence, devotion and a sense of mission count for a lot.
This is the fifth annual edition whose process I’ve had the honor of witnessing and working on. I’m usually one of Eric’s proofreaders and “karma checkers” for every word of the written sign readings. Not only do I watch for errant commas and funky typos, but I read with an ear to the tone of the content — what gets said and how; what is left unsaid — to make sure there are no inadvertent holes or missteps that could trip someone up.
As I read, I often imagine friends and family members born under the sign I am reading, feeling out how it fits for them; I’m always amazed how well it matches up, at least as far as I am allowed into their lives. I’ll have to read my own Sun and rising sign again later, when I’m not hyper-focused on the proofreading deadline, but even during my first encounter with them Sunday I felt myself nodding internally in agreement and wondering how certain changes might manifest.