Hello!
Here is a sample of this week’s Planet Waves Astrology News. The full edition has a juicy lead article on Saturn and Pluto; an article on Saturn through the signs, linking back to key articles I’ve written as early as 1998; a new article by Judith Gayle, and a few excellent science briefs. And there’s the full Planet Waves horoscope.
Lately we’ve been explaining to larger media what I’m doing here at Planet Waves; and I will say that it involves recognizing how much fear we bring to our perception of world events, and what we can do about it. It’s no fun being paralyzed, but that’s what the news does to us. There is nothing spiritual about that, and nothing spiritual about turning off and dropping out. We know the times are changing fast, but what exactly does that mean for us as individuals?
Every week, I offer a fresh approach to that question. A sample follows, and here is how you can subscribe. Note, we will soon be introducing Cosmic Confidential, the 2010 annual edition of Planet Waves. Subscribers get a substantial discount, enough to pay for half of a basic subscription. If you sign up for Planet Waves Astrology News, you’ll get that discount.
Have the best weekend you can dream up.
Yours & truly,
.
Dear Friend and Reader:
As Saturn cleared the last degree of Virgo and made its ingress to Libra yesterday, I’ve been watching the world with extra curiosity; and I’ve been observing myself in the process of watching. It was a strange week, though I think that many of us have actually taken a step. Others are struggling. The pressure is on. Saturn is applying in a square to Pluto, which might feel like a crunch, like a system breakdown/rebuild, and/or a series of long overdue personal turning points showing up.
Square and opposition are among the aspects that say bend in the road. Pluto in Capricorn, for its part, is doing its best to revamp antiquated systems and will be doing so for a long time. It may not be pleasant as some of them are torn down. Note: we have never consciously lived through Pluto in Capricorn. The last time it was here (18th century) was before the discovery (1930).
Saturn, pushing on Pluto, is now ramping up this theme. In the spring, other mighty planets join the alignment in what I’ll be referring to here as the cardinal T-square. This is not your ordinary turn left at the light. We’re talking about various forms of personal and system overload, and the need to develop a new approach to dealing with it. The current popular approach is to shut down, often because no other options seem viable.
The Aries Point is involved, which suggests a series of personal intersections with large cultural subject matter. Saturn is now opposing the Aries Point and Pluto is square it. The problem with this notion of a contact point between the widest themes of society and the most private ones is that most of us don’t experience ourselves as part of anything bigger than ourselves. More often, we feel alienated from most of what is around us. We wonder often enough if we belong in our personal relationships, perhaps the most modest definition of ‘something larger than ourselves’.
It’s time to download the Let’s Get Deep app for your iPhone. We’re goin’ in.
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Even though it’s autumn, we’re still offering our summer specials.
 Weekly Horoscope for Friday, October 30, 2009, #790 – BY ERIC FRANCIS |
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Cancer (June 21- July 22)
You’ve been getting the message to clean house for a while. I mean this in the physical sense. It’s time to open space, to clear closets, and to make sure that there is a relationship between functionality and aesthetics. There is something in your psychic space that wants to be opened up as well, and this involves your concept of where relationship meets security. You place a lot of emphasis on relationship as a form of security, and it has not always been dependable. You may be too easygoing here. You tend to be emotionally flexible, but this does something strange: once you feel you’ve been taken advantage of, you can become way too self-centered for anyone’s benefit. These tendencies don’t originate with you, but you do have the power to change them. Be gentle on yourself and those you love as you clear them out and update your files.
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Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
In so many ways, you are the unstoppable force. Yet it’s not usually easy for you to direct your energy confidently, often because you are at the mercy of your emotions, your fears and a peculiar reluctance that does not have a name. Lots of your energy goes into working out emotional details of relationships, though this is directly a reaction to the fears you haven’t quite identified. Now more than ever you may wonder if you’re a slave to these fears, but I would propose that this is a time to liberate yourself from them. There will be rewards for doing so, because you know you cannot aspire to your highest goals, or even your more modest goals, unless you face a vast unknown within yourself. You may notice that this feels less daunting and more like an open invitation.
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Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
You may still feel like you’re swimming against the tide. However, Saturn’s move into Libra will give you some traction. It will do so if you focus on agreements and commitments. It may feel boring, and you may feel like this kind of approach to life lacks imagination or limits your potential. My sense is that this emphasis will have the opposite effect — to give you a basis for progress; an organizing principle. This involves people, and the kind of people you will harmonize with are those who are not only unafraid of commitment, but rather those who thrive on the stuff. Though the notion of commitment is vague to some, think of it as mutual contact and awareness relating to specific objectives. This will become the conduit for so much more that is on its way.
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Even though it’s autumn, we’re still offering our summer specials.
Thanks, Genevieve. It’s good to hear your feedback and how you’ve experienced something similar.
I’m sure we all have a lot to learn from each other about how climate change is affecting our lives, but as you say, there is a giant effort underway to keep us from acknowledging it. Corporate-sponsored mass denial.
I have no doubt that the truth eventually will out, but will it happen in time? Already the natural world is in the midst of a holocaust, caused not just by CO2 emissions but also by habitat destruction. Humans keep claiming more and more of the natural world for themselves and in the process de-nude rain forests, drain lakes and rivers, deplete water tables, ruin farm lands, use the oceans as a garbage dump, and on and on.
All non-human life forms, plants and animals, are disappearing at shocking rates. Songbird populations — including the robin redbreast you used to see on your windowsill — are down 60% worldwide, the coral reefs are disintegrating and will be gone entirely in 40 years, along with all the species that depend on them.
Plant diversity is shrinking, along with the medinicinal herbs and substances that we derive from them — including the medicines we have yet to discover. Most of the medicines that Western medicine uses were discovered in plant form.
For most of the life forms that planet earth has evolved and sustained over thousands of years — remember humans are just a tiny fraction of the planet’s diveristy — we’ve already reached a time of mass destruction and extinction.
Unfortunately it will be our human turn soon enough. But in the meantime, the real estate developers, oil companies, electric utilities, financiers, the agro-industries and all the other unregulated greedsters are going to be sure to hit their profit margins, no matter how many life forms they wipe out.
They’ve made sure to frame the discussion in such a way that we never ask, “but how much of the natural world are you destroying in order to generate that profit?” Because they’ve made sure to de-value the natural world, they’ve kept it out of the equation.
Sorry to go on so. Really it’s time to speak out, although I don’t want to bore people silly.
warm regards,
Graffiti
GraffitiGrammarian – I think you are spot on! “The seasons never transition smoothly anymore” Last year it was sunny and 65 in Seattle until mid-Dec (it’s supposed to be 50 and rainy and snowing in the mountains) and then a few days before Christmas it dumped 1.5-3 feet in Seattle (it’s unheard of to get THAT much snow in Seattle). And the whole city shut down for 4 days. Grocery stores ran out of food. The gas station across from my house ran out of gas (not that I could go anywhere because there was 1.5 feet of snow in where I live and compact snow and ice on the streets). I was out mountain climbing in the beginning of December and there was less snow (as in ZERO) than there was in June of that year (so much you couldn’t reach many trailheads). That’s NOT normal. But, people don’t want to see the serious problems that are right in front of them. So many people I talk to just chalk it up to some sort of weather phenomenon and dismiss a larger scale problem – global warming. But, really they’re just afraid to go there, to think on what global warming really means. They try to rationalize it all away to some smaller “normal” phenomenon than a possible permanent throwing out of whack of the planet we live on. Plus big business and oil companies have worked really really hard to make the facts surrounding global warming as murky and unrelatable as possible. I definitely think that we are energetically feeling the effects of the damage we are doing to the planet. Great insight GraffitiGrammarian!!
Moomin – it’s great to hear that what I wrote touched someone in some way. That’s what I love about the Planet Waves community – it’s such a welcoming place to share ideas, experiences and help each other tackle this crazy thing called life and remind each other that we aren’t alone in being very aware. 🙂 “dancing with the unknown, yet somehow knowing” great way to describe what the energy is like!
– Genevieve
Eric, I really like the way you link up the personal anxiety we all feel to the avalanche of political events that we “can’t do anything about.”
I think you’re dead on, I would only add this: it’s not just the cultural and political mayhem out there that is disturbing us, it’s also the environmental disturbances.
Think about it: our physical home is deteriorating in ways that we can all now see and feel, and we know we should be doing something to reverse the course, and yet we’re not.
The seasons never transition smoothly anymore, it’s always a jerky, halting shift from summer to fall, fall to winter, winter to spring. Each each seasonal change we go through a week or more when the weatherman gets it wrong every day, it’s either much warmer or cooler than the norm, and then finally the weather seems to “get it” and move into the correct season phase.
There’s a reason this is happening. The climate “thermostat” is broken, the warming is happening so quickly that we are getting a souped-up version of climate change, ie, “climate chaos.”
I think it’s happening a lot more quickly than most people realize. The BBC or the Guardian will carry a story about here and there: glaciers melting 10x faster than expected, droughts consume Kenya, species die off happening at fastest rate ever in history….but only people on the margins are consciously picking up on it, although subconsciously, we all know something big is happening.
So Eric to your list of the things that are bigger than we are, things that are outside of us that muck up our personal lives and intrude on our own peace and sanity, to this list you might add environmental chaos. I think it is just as overwhelming and anxiety-provoking as the financial collapse and potentially will harm us more in the long run.
peace, love and diversity, baby,
Graffiti
Eric, thank you for an awesome Friday edition – words defy me! Bravo!
Genevieve – what you wrote so resonates with me I would like to be so bold as to reiterate every word! – Thank you so very much for writing and sharing.
Such a deep time, dancing with the unknown, yet somehow knowing – it takes my words from me so thank you for writing
Love
Annie
Fantastic edition today Eric. Thank you so much.
Eric,
Fascinating article as always 🙂
Check your inbox btw …
I mean taut not taught. Apparently, I can’t spell today. 😉
Another amazing Friday addition, Eric! With getting out the detailed and awesome November Horoscopes on Tuesday and then producing this lengthy Friday edition on top of that – I’m amazed how much high quality work you produce in such a short amount of time!
The question “What Exactly Aren’t You Scared of?” seemed to be a very fitting question to ask and I’m so glad you asked it when you did. While reading the Friday edition this morning I made a list of things I’m not afraid of. I was so surprised and proud of myself to be able to write down things that used to terrify me so bad I didn’t ever think I would be able to grow beyond them. Things like telling the man I loved (with every fiber of my being) that he wasn’t treating me with love and respect, that he was killing the beautiful bond we shared, and so I was walking away from the relationship because I deserve better. Also speaking the 100% unedited truth, honesty, authenticity, stating my clear boundaries and not worrying whether the other person was going to like it or not, being vulnerable in front of someone I really respected and loved, change, and being happy and knowing that I deserve love and happiness. A year ago, even 6 months ago, if posed the same question I don’t think I could have written most of those things down. And I have Eric, with your amazing astrology and insight, and the wonderful community of Planet Waves to thank for helping me get to this amazing place!
While struggling through the hard astrology the last few years and the eclipses this past summer and the triple conjunction in Aquarius I kept wondering how I was going to live my life so aware and feeling such constant pressure of change. It was exhausting. What I didn’t know at the time and that I know now is that once you go through the change, the hard stuff, complete the lessons, become sufficiently aware and grow enough the aspects don’t become as hard, things easy up and the pressure isn’t as great. I’m so excited to be able to say that for the first time the following isn’t me: “the inner pressure may be pretty intense or disconcerting”. 6 months ago it would have been me and I did experience a lot of that. But, not this time, with Saturn in Libra and squaring Pluto I feel more internally balanced and centered than I ever have before. The energy recently feels heavy, big, tense and taught – like I’ve been pulled taught and I’m about to snap around a corner (in my journey of growth, awareness and my progress in life) the same way a rubber pulled taught when released snaps really fast. But I don’t feel stressed, strung out, anxious or the intense internal pressure I used to feel during big aspects. Sure, there will be other aspects that will test me greatly and force me to grow in ways I can’t imagine, but having become as aware as I am, I’m not afraid of growth and I have the tool set (from following all of Eric’s amazing astrology) to work with the energies instead of being confused by them or overwhelmed by them.
“Some people are more devoted to this than are others; many people are really freaking out.?”
I’ve definitely noticed this – the last month that has gotten worse and as we hit Saturn in Libra nearly everyone around me (except for 3 of my friends) are falling apart and feel too stuck to do anything or make any changes. And things just keep getting worse for them. As they freak out, instead of focusing on growth, things just seem to get harder for them.
I wish everyone the best working through the transits!
– Genevieve
I’m not scared of Planet Waves.
Boo.