Planet Waves Weekly for Sep. 12, 2024 by Eric Francis

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Look out the window. What do you see? Go outside and walk around a little. What do you feel? You are a child of the Earth. But Virgo has a strange affinity to technology, which can hold you like a spell and divide you from the natural world. The thing about Virgo is that it stands halfway between a forest and a computer: from 17th century books, we know that mostly it represents agriculture and dairy production. Those are powerful technologies that helped humanity “conquer” nature. Your challenge at the moment is, in a sense, to take over your own nature and focus your efforts on rebuilding your career in a way that is suitable for the digital age. It will resemble inventing something like a dairy farm that gathers the energy of nature and concentrates it into something that can feed you dependably.

How to Use My Horoscopes

My horoscopes follow the classical approach to the work that I learned from Patric Walker. Yet I avoid being predictive and lean into a philosophical and thematic approach. They may speak to you at times and not at others. It helps to give them time. And if there is something that seems way off, print it out, stick it on the wall somewhere and come back in a few weeks. You might see what I was getting at.

Question of the Week

Does self-criticism ever work to help you both improve your treatment of others, and help you feel better about yourself?

This Week’s Photos

With the exception of a few at the end, photos with the horoscope are mostly taken in New Paltz, New York during an especially beautiful late afternoon light bath. Most of those are at Wallkill View Farms on Rt. 299 heading out of town toward the mountain. Several of those are in the greenhouse. I’m playing with a different lens these days. Usually I use very wide glass, such as 15mm, 21mm or 35mm.

Photos this week are mostly taken with a very fast 85mm Canon lens that opens all the way up to f/1.4, which gives the washy look to the colors and the depth of field that can pick out one detail and blur the rest. It’s actually designed as a portrait lens that I first tried out on my trip to Block Island last November.

Lenses take time to get to know, and they reveal their secrets only with much experimentation in many settings and different kinds of light. If you view my articles on a large screen, you’ll get much more out of the photos. I always publish them at printable resolution.

This morning I wrote to Jesse Zurawell, “Photography is how I participate in the physical world. It’s my way into everything outside of the internet…a digital transport tool that I use to cross back and forth over the threshold.”

The Awakening: Your 2025 Readings by Eric Francis – 12 Signs + Custom Live Reading Now Available.

Aries (March 20-April 19) — You may need to confront a difficult emotional reality or home situation. Yet it’s essential to ask whether you’re responding or reacting; and whether that is based on an actual present situation, or something you’re carrying around from ancient history. There’s quite a bit of replay going on right now, meaning the potential to slip into an emotional experience that may have been true for you at one time but does not represent reality today. As an astrologer, I am keenly aware of the extent to which people even in their elder years can be attached to pain and conflict that existed in lived reality many, many decades earlier — yet they speak of it as if it were right in the room with them. So take a look around and see who you are with, and ask if your emotions accurately reflect your situation.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — The theme of your charts continues to center around sincerity. Now, this is a strange concept in a world where it’s assumed that everyone and everything lands somewhere between a put-on and a deep fake. There is an ethic that as long as one has people convinced, that’s close enough to the truth. But it’s not close enough for you. Not if you want to be happy and, moreover, trust the fact that people actually care about you. This is a bigger deal than you may imagine. Any time you lapse into a form of drama or work with an agenda that you don’t share with the people closest to you, you stoke your own doubt about whether they actually care. It’s possible to go down quite a tunnel here, and when you emerge, you’re still in the same situation you were in — but doubting yourself a little more. The only way to have confidence in yourself is to be honest, first with yourself and then with others. Nothing else works. Nothing else matters.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Your ideas about money are very, very different from those of your ancestors. And they are probably quite a long way from those of partners or in-laws. Ultimately this is not really about money but about values. You have your priorities and other people have theirs. And they may see their goal as making sure you choose to do things the way they want you to. However, I don’t suggest you get mixed up in any arguments. The best discussion might be avoiding the discussion, since it is likely to be out-of-bounds and you will not want to participate. Or, though this may be challenging, you can listen and let other people do all the talking and the arguing and the persuading, while you sit quietly with your values and your priorities. There is nothing for you to defend. Your life and your money are your own.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Keep aware of your fears, particularly of cataclysmic disaster in any form, personal or collective. Such fears are archetypal in nature — not the result of something that is actually in your present energy field. There is quite a bit of catastrophobia going around these days; you can randomly subscribe to any Substack but mine and you will get a dose of it, or more likely, a near-overdose. I think we need to see this for what it is: a kind of mental and spiritual collapse happening as a direct result of digital conditions. The fear is the loss of meaning, the loss of context, and the deep sense that the thing gone missing is oneself. Yes, the planet is in rough shape at the moment, but people are in worse condition. And people matter more than the planet because unless we have our wits about us, we cannot act rationally or make any changes. Reality begins with you.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — Don’t take anyone’s word for anything, including your own. The Sun’s meeting with Neptune insists that you take your time and get the facts right. You need to consider whether you’ve been misinformed or misled about a financial matter, and take the steps to make any necessary corrections. I realize you’ve been through a series of ups and downs the past few weeks, and you may think you’ve got it figured out. But it could be at least another week or two before you start to get a handle, and you will be making discoveries for quite a while. This should serve as a reminder to enter into clear agreements and to keep detailed records of your transactions. You may want to be trusting, but others are not always up to the honor. And the rising tide of chaos is constantly lapping at everyone’s feet. So you must plan for how to handle that.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — Look out the window. What do you see? Go outside and walk around a little. What do you feel? You are a child of the Earth. But Virgo has a strange affinity to technology, which can hold you like a spell and divide you from the natural world. The thing about Virgo is that it stands halfway between a forest and a computer: from 17th century books, we know that mostly it represents agriculture and dairy production. Those are powerful technologies that helped humanity “conquer” nature. Your challenge at the moment is, in a sense, to take over your own nature and focus your efforts on rebuilding your career in a way that is suitable for the digital age. It will resemble inventing something like a dairy farm that gathers the energy of nature and concentrates it into something that can feed you dependably.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Venus has passed through the territory of what I’ve been describing as the Capricorn cluster, a group of five minor planets (new discoveries plus the all-important asteroid Ceres). What did you experience? What did you learn? Take careful notes, because what you’ve learned matters. The art of art, of astrology and of life is pattern recognition. In the present chaotic insanity of the world, that is the one skill that can get you through the maelstrom. Such does not mean forcing your imagination on anything, but rather noticing what distinctly repeats. The shapes, ideologies, personal configurations and other factors that might qualify as fitting a “pattern” will be easily recognizable for what they are — without much theorizing. Along the way, pay attention to who is in pain, and how that motivates them. Notice the strange attachment to the potential for catastrophe, whether yours or that of anyone else.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — You may think that you can make an important decision based on how you feel. Your astrology is drawing a picture of not being able to trust that entirely, and instead is calling on you to rely on a factual analysis of your situation. How you feel is too subject to various shades of reaction rather than response. And that reaction seems pinned to factors rooted in the past that, themselves, just need to be seen and understood for what they are. By that, I mean factors of ancient history that may be driving you not just from the back seat but from the boot. You’re turning the wheel to the left and the right because you “feel” a certain way, having no idea where that feeling is coming from. I’m here to tell you it may be coming from a shitfaced drunk great-grandfather or maybe a great-grandmother who had to get three abortions because she sold her body to make money to eat.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — The question is, whose values are driving your choices, and your perception of who you are? Who decides what is meaningful to you? From the look of your charts, it’s not actually you. It would seem to be some influence from the very distant past, which is taking over your sense of who you are. Do not be confused in this matter, easy though it is. The priorities of people like your parents, grandparents and beyond are easy to mistake for something that is set in stone, or orthodox parameters that you must live by. It’s easy to think that you will benefit from their approval by living up to some standard of the past. There may have been times when this made sense. Nobody actually did that in the past, and if they did, they would have no clue how to orient themselves today. What you need now is to be adaptable — and more than anything, true to yourself rather than some presumed standard or code.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — I think the old astrology books have Capricorn all wrong. You are portrayed as a matter-of-fact thinker in the spirit of Saturn, when in truth you’re more of a clairvoyant who can take someone’s ring in your hands and tell them about how they feel. You are a person of remarkable intuition — and it’s running at an all-time high right now, peaking into the weekend as the Moon moves through Pisces. You may be so right-on about something you have no idea. And yet you may still doubt yourself. You may still undervalue the importance of your hunches and your ability to peer beyond the veil, and into the hidden crevices of the past. There is something you suspect is true, and chances are you are correct. Now, the question goes to the implications. This discovery has specific meaning for you. What is it? That’s the question to focus on.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — The power of desire — of wanting — is tremendous. Nearly everything that has been accomplished in the world, through its history, occurred because someone wanted to make that thing happen. To get this effect is not about the right thing happening. It’s not about a good thing happening. It’s not about some collective notion of what might be true. It’s about desire — and that is the place where everything pivots for you. And here is the issue: you are likely to be concerned that your desire would get a result. That, in turn, could have you worried who you might offend by both desire and result. I don’t mean anyone actually present in your life. I mean people from the distant past, most of whom you have never met and whose names you do not know. Do not allow yourself to be haunted by the phantoms of antiquity. Stay right in the moment and pay attention.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — Your values are different than those of other people, and this you must always remember. The notion of being different is one of the most terrifying in our tribal society, because it comes with the potential of being cast off and left behind. That is not going to happen to you. You can afford to live the truth that your idea about life and your concept of who you are is not only distinct from nearly everyone around you, but that there is nothing you can do to change this. Yet the act of trying to, of being in the least denial about your core values and how important they are, can blind you to all the good that you do, and all the good that is coming to you. Stand not just in your truth but in your understanding that it’s necessary for you to survive and thrive on our planet. You can only be you. To be anything other than wholly real is to betray yourself.

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