Planet Waves Inner Space for January 2009

Aries (March 20-April 19)
Yours is the sign of beginnings, and you certainly seem to be doing plenty of that. You have a mission in the world, but there is a deeper emotional or spiritual lesson, which is to keep your focus on your feelings as you strive to conquer the world. It is easy to cut ourselves off from our inner environment and the sensitive, even fragile world of our sensibilities. You can shorten the conversation by checking in about whether you feel safe, and whether the people around you feel safe. I mean this in the most direct ways: trusting of the environment, and trusting of the human environment. Listen for a long time before you speak. Others may not know what’s bothering them.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
You must be impeccable about how you present yourself in professional situations. You could, at the moment, convince anyone that you have anything. Yet then you would have to demonstrate your skills and be seen for who you are. The point is this: at the moment, you believe in yourself, and you can see that you really do have a long-range plan that is finally starting to seem plausible, and like its time has arrived. Be bold about your intentions and your aspirations, and I don’t suggest you hide them from people you look up to. You have credibility and an enormous wealth of goodwill to draw upon. Now is the time to trust yourself; you’ve waited long enough.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
Faith is a beautiful thing. Don’t confuse it with hope, or with arrogance, or with expectation. Faith is simply a silent understanding that you will rise to any occasion you are called upon to meet. It is a subtle form of trust, in existence, rather than in any one person or thing. It would appear in certain areas of your life that you are in way over your head, encountering forces beyond your control or too aggressive for your affable nature. Stay friendly. Negotiate with everyone, from your boss to the parking meter attendant. Never meet aggression with aggression. That certain individuals may feel that their word is the next best thing to what Moses delivered will melt under the gentle graces of your humanity.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
You wanted attention, and you’re getting it, to what may be an overwhelming degree. There seems to be no easy way to deflect it; no way to tell who is coming at you with what agenda. However, if you spend five minutes out of every hour thinking (rather than reacting, responding, panicking, or whatever you might choose to do) you will see that your situation is manageable and that it can, with a shade of foresight, be turned to great benefit for everyone involved. You have to do something a little unusual, which is harness the power of the people around you, rather than being their engine. This will require the utmost clarity — including a clear conscience. Don’t worry — people are acting in accord with their free will.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
Clearly, you need to do the most difficult thing for a Leo — delegate. To delegate means to let go of; to entrust others with a task that you would normally only trust yourself with. I assure you that things will go better, not worse. Recognize the fact that you have drawn people to you who share your sense of integrity and self-respect. However, they also have something you lack, which is a sense of perspective outside your own headspace. There are several key things that you are assuming will be difficult when the truth is, for the right person, they are easy and will be fun to do. You will be the one who gets the credit for the success; be gracious about it.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
If you’re wondering what that feeling is, it’s your creative impulse coming on fast and furious: the life force. If you turn and look directly at it, your entire awareness will shift and this magnificent cosmic fire will consume you and most of your petty plans. This is obviously at odds with your sense of control, and being the absolute master of your schedule. The other option you have is to run from your own strength, feeling its flames lapping at your heels. Yet have you spent your whole life growing and struggling for awareness only to try to escape when it finally stirs to life? Think about this one carefully before you answer.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
It is a continuing source of amazement to me that anyone feels safe on this planet; secure with one another or in their surroundings. I wonder if the concept of safety as we experience it is entirely an intellectual notion. Think of those times you check three times if your door is locked, and those other times when you leave it open all night and nothing happens. This being said, there are psychological obstacles to your sense of safety, and you are beginning to work through them, perhaps faster than you imagined you would. Let’s put it this way: anything you worship becomes a religion, including and in particular fear.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
It looks to me like your mind is on fire, like you have so many ideas you will never get them all done. First slow down; there is a weird kind of illusion that you’re under and it’s pushing you to go faster than you need. Second, try to think in some terms other than strictly linear. Look for one good idea and go with it: I mean the real gem. You may need to express some of your ideas on paper, so you can see what you’ve got to work with. It will be easier to evaluate them that way. Once you find the special pearl, many of your other concepts, plans and schemes will find a home. What you need is that one, very strong organizing principle to have some perspective. And you will.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
What I see in your chart is the image of someone who is, after purchasing the mineral rights to a vast swath of land that everyone thought was a waste, starting to extract significant wealth. This is just the beginning; take your time, and go for steady rather than fast (there is a difference, often overlooked). Begin with the most conventional methods, and take notes on what works and what does not, which will save you from trying to force something when something else would be perfectly feasible. It’s imperative that you think in the long run: not about how you’re going to pay this month’s rent, but about cultivating something very lucrative that will support you for 10 or 20 years. You have already begun.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
I don’t think you’ve ever felt like this before. That’s partly because I’ve never seen a chart like this before, and partly because I just know. I see a sense of boundless potential mingled with a kind of irresistible urge to take action; to shape the world; to make things right. Yes, yes, yes, but the place to begin is with your perception of yourself. The place to continue is with your ongoing relationship with yourself. Perhaps it seems too subtle to mean much; you want to feed Africa or reorganize the Federal Reserve. Start with understanding yourself, which is another way of saying understand your motives. You would do well to initiate a process of taking care of yourself. You have some long years of neglect to make up for, and you will feel very good with each small step you take.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
You seem to be living in two worlds: that of your deepest fears and another of your greatest hopes. Trade in both for something else, which is a sense of your authentic self-assurance. From one point of view, the world (and your own mind) is so vastly complicated that there is no sorting it out, no finding a place of clear awareness. On the other, your ideals seem so perfect as to be unattainable, or too fragile for the brutality of unsupportive circumstances. Confidence will help you thread the needle. And the question is: where do you find that? Chiron gives a clue: work from what you feel is your worst flaw, your most glaring imperfection. Rather than push it under awareness, tap into it as a source of awareness and strength. Take the first step and it will take the next.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
You have the absolute support of your friends; learn that now and forever. Get it in your body. The world and most romantic types such as yourself tend to emphasize one-on-one loving relationships, and the word ‘friend’ is a kind of lesser status. The lessons and experiences of life do not bear this out, though you must be careful who you call a friend, and why. Another concept is expanding in your world at the moment, and that is community. This is a concept that has been lost in our era of supposed individualism, but there has never been a time when community mattered more, or mattered more to you. Open your heart, open your soul, and open your life and observe who shows up at the threshold of your days.

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