Good morning world,
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Before we get into today’s blog, Planet Waves is about to issue two new publications.
First is the horoscope from the series, It’s Not About Sex, It’s About Self. This was originally our Valentine’s Day series and it has stretched from one cross-quarter day (Imbolc/Valentine’s Day) to another — Beltane.
The horoscope was written by Paloma Todd, our longtime friend and collaborator in Barcelona (formerly of Paris and Puerto Rico). It was originally written as material that I could work with to develop into the horoscope, but the writing was so magnificent I could not make a single edit in her poetry. Here is a sample, from the Taurus edition:
I want it all. I want sex atop the Himalayas. I want cherry blossom sex in Japan. I want to expand, explore and explode. I want to feel the cosmic universe by meeting you, all of you. I want them all, on a plate to be eaten as a cosmic gourmet buffet; I want all the tastes melting as truth enlightens me, while I surrender the weight of my body into the smells of the skin of others. I am as hungry for orgasmic wisdom as I am for having sexes in my mouth and skins under my teeth. I ask for it all, and as much as I want, I am willing to give back to my lovers, as they are the cosmic stars of my voraciousness. I am such a laugh, such a gift. The energy I bring into meeting the other is overwhelming, overboard, even abrasive, but I do bring something joyful into other people’s lives. Others enjoy me devouring them.
It’s Not About Sex, It’s About Self was planned as a single essay and horoscope. It has grown into an online book. The horoscopes cover about 500 words per sign and there are six additional sections (with a conclusion and resources section forthcoming). If you sign up today, you’ll get the horoscopes for all 12 signs, plus the previous six parts which explore jealousy, compersion, self-disclosure, sexual independence in relationships and some ideas for new models of monogamy. There is a lot of very useful information about masturbation and its history, an enlightened view of solo sex.
And you’ll receive any additional mailings we do as the project concludes.
The series is based on a decade of my work as a presenter at sexuality workshops in New York and California, and I consider it my best writing to date on the subject of thinking outside the box as a sexual critter. I also consider Paloma’s horoscope one of the very best we have ever published at Planet Waves, and I am truly proud to make it available to you.
Next, my May monthly horoscope is about to be published in a few minutes. The monthly stars are now available only through our two main subscriber services — Small World Stories and Planet Waves Astrology News. If you need a comp subscription, please check this link for instructions.
Here is the Taurus horoscope for May 2008.
Taurus (April 19-May 20)
As a stunning New Moon sweeps through your birth sign this month, I suggest you ask yourself one question: is what you want based on what you want, or is it based on some extreme external conditioning? One’s work or mission must be based on an inner process in order to be authentic. While it’s impossible to sort out all external factors, there are a few you need to be aware of. These principally involve the effects of what you were told you could not do. The equation parses out like this. If you were blocked, chastised, or punished for expressing your talents, this can trigger a kind of obsession with ambition. The effect would be to make you object oriented rather than process oriented; in spiritual terms, you could stay hung up on the supposed destination rather than the journey. You will have a clue about whether this is happening if in some way you emphasize image over substance; if you are concerned more about what people think than how you feel. The most helpful thing you can do at this point is discern whether your goals are really your goals. Where exactly did they come from, and what other options do you see? For where you are at now, is it necessary to have goals at all, or do they conceal something deeper — something you truly want and need?
This morning’s blog is written by Genevieve Salerno. Genevieve strolled into my life one afternoon as a model candidate for my photo project, Book of Blue. She came in for her interview as her boyfriend Joe waited out in the car in case I turned out to be a weirdo. We became friends in an hour, and spent most of the time talking about Norse mythology — one of her specialties (an understatement). By the time she walked out of my apartment she had joined the Planet Waves staff as an astrology assistant. (We finally got to doing photos a few months later. She is a bold and creative photo model.)
Have a great day, and I leave you in the capable hands of Genevieve.
Psyche in Scorpio retrograde sextile Jupiter in Capricorn.
A few nights ago I was sitting in a field of grass that went outwards in all directions about as far as I could see. Beyond that, thin trees provided a buffer of more textured darkness before the mountains rose up like flat shadows of something much bigger against the wall of night. The night sky itself was a gorgeous polished lazuli, the Moon was almost full and it seemed like the light was as palpable as a spider’s silk when you walk into it. I was completely alone in that space, trembling on the very edge of hallucination, chilly enough to stay away from a trance, and I began to cry.
Looking back on that now, I know it was the delicacy of the moment that brought me to that state of complete helplessness, and brought in there before an almost Full Moon, the feeling, instead of the terrifying, as most people would anticipate, I found it revealing and safe. The culture we live in today, the emotions we most readily associate ourselves with, are ones of fear and worry. We try so hard to prevent things, it’s as though we live in constant flinch mode. But every so often, we get a chance to get a glimpse of things as a whole instead of just little parts, and instead of fragmented, jarring and stormy; it is unrolling, vast, and sublime.
The Moon was just leaving Libra, slipping into that dark, contemplative energy that is Scorpio, like a widow retiring from a party into a darker, secret room to reflect on the turns her life has taken. I felt a relinquishing of all the armor that helped build my personal niche, which I have outgrown, and slid out of it like the lambs that just got born out in the backyard from where I write this now. I wonder to myself, what was I so afraid of in the first place? What kind of pain did I carry so long and horde away from the Night, from the Earth, that I doubted it could be made into something more useful and more beautiful if I buried it and left it in that field to be nurtured by the milky moonlight and the lulling western breeze?
I find that tonight’s aspect reflects this feeling perfectly: the pushing outward from boundaries that, at first, strove to protect us, and instead became our tourniquets and collars. Jupiter in Capricorn makes a window where there was just a wall, and offers the Psyche in us to relish in the night that for so long held bitter memories of loss, and instead surprise with the tranquility of the new hunger for experience. And of course, since Psyche is retrograde, it is also a call to look within, because; after all, to find the answer to any mystery, we must look within, before we look without.
— Genevieve Salerno
Aspects for Tuesday 22 April 2008, courtesy of Serennu.
Eros (16+ Taurus) semisquare Vesta (1+ Aries)
Nessus (14+ Aquarius) sextile Ixion (14+ Sagittarius Rx)
Atlantis (18+ Libra Rx) sextile Quaoar (18+ Sagittarius Rx)
Venus (19+ Aries) quincunx Logos (19+ Virgo Rx)
Sun (2+ Taurus) quintile Chiron (20+ Aquarius)
Eros (16+ Taurus) sesquiquadrate Arachne (1+ Libra Rx)
Atlantis (18+ Libra Rx) opposite Pallas (18+ Aries)
Pallas (18+ Aries) trine Quaoar (18+ Sagittarius Rx)
Mercury (9+ Taurus) quincunx Pholus (9+ Sagittarius Rx)
Vesta (1+ Aries) opposite Arachne (1+ Libra Rx)
Venus (20+ Aries) sesquiquadrate Hylonome (5+ Sagittarius Rx)
Amor (28+ Aries) trine Orcus (28+ Leo Rx)
Apollo (20+ Cancer) quincunx Chiron (20+ Aquarius)
Mars (21+ Cancer) trine Uranus (21+ Pisces)
Pandora (18+ Scorpio Rx) quincunx Pallas (18+ Aries)
Sun (3+ Taurus) sextile Kronos (3+ Cancer)
Venus (20+ Aries) sextile Chiron (20+ Aquarius)
Psyche (21+ Scorpio Rx) sextile Jupiter (21+ Capricorn)
Oracle returns: Jan 31, 2003 – Aquarius – Weekly
You get to decide anything you want right now: to live or die, to know or to forget, to condemn yourself for the past pain of others, or to release and forgive and understand without words. There has been no time like this in your life so far. There are elements present in your environment and in your consciousness that no person could have foreseen, or perhaps a great master: someone named Ammachi comes to mind. We could say you are standing in the door to all truth, which is the same as the door to all lies. It just depends on which way you go, what you are willing to feel, what your soul needs, and the extent to which you are willing to set aside the fears of your parents, and of theirs. Check it out. It’s not your fear. It belongs to someone else. You can put it down.
welcome to the world, butterfly