This week, we’re running a series of letters from my Planet Waves co-creators (introduced here). Tonight’s letter is from Fe Bongolan, my friend, mentor, astrology client and fellow political junkie. I first met Fe in San Francisco in 2004. The hand-written Planet Waves logo that we use everywhere was scribbled using a Sharpie pen in Kinkos Copies on that very trip. Fe is one of our roots into the Earth, into soul and into reality. — efc
Dear Planet Waves Reader:
I am fortunate to have had the right teacher at the right time whenever I was at crossroads. Each came to me as an answer to a prayer. They were often totally unexpected, not in a shape or form I would have predicted. They gave me the right information at a crucial moment, leading me forward on the path. The right path. They led me to my life in theater, to the people who would turn out to be my dearest friends, and to all of my jobs.
Since I was a child, astrology had always held a fascination — actually an obsession — for me. I looked to it for answers, or at least clues. What was I going to be when I grew up? I found myself still asking that question in my forties. When I happened upon Eric’s writings on the Internet fifteen years ago during the early Vashon Island days of Planet Waves, I knew I was meeting up with the next guide, the road sign, the map to where it was I was going. What it was that I have been. Where I could be going.
I was in a life that increasingly was no longer mine to claim. Unfulfilled by career and the incessant call of familial duty, my time was not mine. Even with the frustration of that kind of restriction, mostly of my own making, I was afraid to venture out into the world beyond the gates of my history, my culture, my fears.
Yet, the call of so much left undone waited for me in my dreams like a specter in the closet. I was at a major jump-off point in my adult life, stuck in the middle of the four-way intersection, not certain where my path would lead. Going back was not an option, and yet the new was fearful territory for me. ‘The new’ was finding my freedom and my passion.
I remember Eric Francis’ words as though I’d read them yesterday: What you need now is to FINALLY allow yourself to listen and think with your feelings. Which in my old Catholic brain was the road to hell: allowing myself to say and do what I think and feel.
In actuality that was the expressway to heaven: freedom to be myself, unfurled. The wisdom in Eric’s writings and Planet Waves astrology inspired me to take a leap of faith and purchase my first of many one-to-one readings with him.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do —
determined to save
the only life you could save.— from “The Journey” by Mary Oliver
While writing this letter for Planet Waves, I kept hearing the words from Mary Oliver’s iconic poem “The Journey” as I looked back on the “she” that I was. I kept hearing the questions I’d asked myself then: Who am I? Who do I love? Who loves me? And more than once, sometimes painfully and honestly: Where am I now?
In finding Planet Waves, I discovered an astrology site that was more than astrology. It was a soul resource, a map to my Self. It put me on the path to who loves me. It was there, helping me answer those questions, letting me hear that the answer was finally, authentically: Me.
By unlocking these doors, I began the next journey, and the next, moving further out, unmoored, unafraid, and into the world. Mi casa, mi cara; Planet Waves — with its writers, its oracles, its horoscopes and its community — is a safety rail on the high-speed train of living life in this new century. With it, we can stride deeper, as Mary Oliver said, into the world.
At a special introductory rate of $49 for a year, you’re indeed very lucky to have the ticket for the journey that is Planet Waves. This special rate is just for your first year. What do you get for this membership fee? Take a look here.
In the midst of all the stimulus in our society, and all of the ‘stuff’ out there that we are compelled by our media and our culture to buy — stuff that’s keeping us from ourselves — Planet Waves is a place and an experience that brings you back to you. I’d say that’s priceless — more than worth the price of the ticket. So take a chance. Jump on board. And get ready. As Fe-911 says: Life is an adventure. Enjoy the Ride. That’s Planet Waves.
Warmly,
Fe Bongolan (aka Fe-911)
Strawberry laughter:
I am humbled by the regard. And welcome to this community.
You speak poniards, Fe, and every word stabs. Or something. Every line of this essay carries an unspeakable weight & a resonance with my own place in life that chills me. Your words are a gift.
It’s difficult, online, to know whether it’s actually worth the risk to join a community and speak up. So many unseen critics–which are, often, our fears in the mask of ‘the other’–so many ways to open ourselves up to whatever hell is awaiting us. Though every time I take the risk to comment I feel like my little crab shell is fracturing into a million pieces, there’s a truth being created here–every single day–that makes me stronger to be part of. I’ve spent my life trying to be invisible. The prospect of “moving further out, unmoored, unafraid, and into the world” stuns me cold. And yet I know I will. Because I must. And the guides will be there for me. Here for me. Now.
The whole lot of you at PW are in sync right now in a way that–to use a phrase of Len’s–doesn’t happen every day. I’ve never seen anything like it, and am deeply grateful to you all for the work you’ve done in your own lives to get where you are right now, and the willingness to offer others of us a light saying ‘this way. a little farther.’ Luckily, gratitude is boundless. You have all of mine.