Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for January 2019 (#1232)
Make careful use of your technology. Ensure you are the one using it as a creative tool, and that it is not using you. This is challenging, because we tend to become like the tools we use; our minds shape and form around them. It can be painful to take up your tools, because they are sensory devices, sending you feedback that can be overwhelming. So, too, can thought itself. We are now well into the age of delegating the making of decisions to technological processes (falsely called "artificial intelligence"). What our society does not see right now is that our technology exists on the level of a religion. That is the part of the brain and of consciousness they occupy. We accept that they are miracles and that the gospel is true. You must keep your conscience about you in the coming years. Above all, this means making your own choices, and knowing the moment you deflect the responsibility to do so. Normally I might say that you can trust your own goodness, but this time I’m going to suggest that you raise it to question. Subject your intentions to scrutiny. Make sure you differentiate the emotional level of your consciousness from your mental process. You are more easily subject to propaganda on the emotional level, where it’s easier to be persuaded and to persuade yourself. Therefore, the planets in their courses are calling upon you to be a master of doubt. And if that is true, your most effective tool will be your curiosity, because it will lead you to the place of true intelligence: the desire to know and understand.
Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for February 2019 (#1236)
Community, communication and commerce are related words, and they describe what we humans need to do together. The realm of the ‘common’ is your home right now, the ordinary, the mundane. The people you’ll want to commune with are your neighbors and friends — the people who are like sisters and brothers to you. Be aware you’re likely to be in a lot better condition than many of the people you know, no matter how challenging your life may be at times. You have resources and wisdom that others often lack; you have a sense of perspective. More than anything, your drive for independence gives you more freedom to be yourself than many other people are willing to allow. With Chiron about to enter your fellow fire sign Aries, your drive for self-expression is likely to be the factor that powers your life for the foreseeable future. You cannot suppress this; you must give yourself room to push into new territory, and to claim yourself as who you are, limitations and all. But you won’t know what those limits are until you push them, and when you discover that they move, you may decide to define them differently. You can only find out who you are when you push past the boundaries of who you are not. You of all people cannot be trapped within a false self-concept, and if getting out of that comes with a crisis, it’s one I suggest you embrace willingly, and boldly.
Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for March 2019 (#1237)
The recent Full Moon in Virgo is summoning you to focus your path in life, make some decisions, and pull one particular creative angle into focus. I know this may feel more risky now than ever; our lives and the world seem so delicately balanced, and there is so little extra to go around (whether it’s time, money or patience). Yet you’ve entered new territory, territory where you must express yourself from the core of your being, and this is indispensable. Doing this does not happen overnight, though you’ve been building up to this moment for a long time. Your challenge has probably seemed to be about focusing your energy and commitment. Yet you know that on a deeper level, the real challenge has been about taking the plunge of accessing places you’ve never gone deep into, where there is no turning back. If for many long years this particular aspect of your calling has seemed scattered, and somehow impossible to focus, get ready for a new tack. One approach to this new era is to choose one thing, one seemingly small goal, and do it. The ideal aim would seem within reach, contained, specific and would likely be something you’ve experimented with for a while. As an objective, it would relate to a particular thing you produce or to development that you attain. This is not the end in itself; rather, it would be designed as a practice run, so you get the hang of doing it. And with that under your belt, you would move on to another.
Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for April 2019 (#1240)
Be careful not to become the embodiment of your insecurities. You could just as well fill yourself up on your confidence and passion. Ideally, this will be fed by your rather broad perspective on life. You have a concept of human potential that’s far more expansive than most of the people you know. This can be daunting, however, if you worry about your ability to live up to what you know is possible. The good part is, you’re sure that nothing is impossible. It’s then a question of how you get from here to there. I can tell you that in one word: chutzpah. That is simply defined as "shameless audacity," but coming out of the original concept in Yiddish, it has a friendly, admirable quality. The more you use it, the better it works. As you do you will discover something about the world, and about people: they tend to move over when someone has some guts and motivation. Many will help out. You might want to blaze into completely unknown territory; more likely, you will want to respond to available opportunities or pick up on an invitation. If you’re the type to burst forward, you might want to apply some of the "responding" and "being invited" just to make sure that you have some runway available — and then proceed in an undaunted fashion. Conditioned insecurity is one of the world’s best-selling products. Like refined sugar, flour, trans-fats and other forms of bullshit, you have no use for it whatsoever. You much prefer fresh fruit.
Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for May 2019 (#1244)
A Course in Miracles has an annoying comment about how we have the choice to be right, or be happy. Rather, it’s annoying until you see it work, and you have an excellent opportunity to experiment: let everyone else be right for a while, and keep your opinion to yourself. Keep your mind open and consider the possibilities, but don’t worry about whether you’re right, or wrong, for that matter. There are a few ways to do this, one of which is to maintain a position of always being open to more data, or more interesting perspectives. It’s likely that certain people in your environment are going to be rather opinionated for the next few weeks (this may have started a while ago, but it will be more obvious now). That in itself is likely to be a turnoff at worst, or entertaining at best. Don’t let it become offensive, though. Keep your sense of humor as an underlying foundation of your self-confidence. If you can laugh at something, you rapidly diminish the power it holds over you; in a real way, you set yourself free from its clutches. Seeing the humor is also a form of humility, which means moist, like the earth. I’m not talking about sarcasm, which is dry (and there is a place for it, which you may encounter from time to time). Here is the thing: You are bigger than any opinion that you or anyone has. When your mind is open, your creativity engages, and you see many possibilities, when before, you may have only seen a few.
Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for June 2019 (#1248)
Be mindful of how your emotions are influencing you. This will be a special challenge, because often you think they don’t affect you at all. And at the moment, that power is rather invisible and, in most other ways, difficult to discern. So you will need to look for indicators of your overall mood, beginning with how expressive you feel. Use this as the primary metric of your mental health. Do you find yourself holding thoughts and feelings inside, or can you easily express what you need to say? If you’re usually a creative person, how is that going? Are you writing, drawing, making music or moving your body as you usually do? Or do you feel caught in some invisible morass? Another thing to check out is how the people around you are conducting themselves. Are they being reasonable and truthful? Or are they acting out in some way? Make sure you’re using documented observations to make this assessment, to avoid being persuaded by any bias you may have. Meanwhile, if you want to be more involved with life, the thing to do is to stoke your curiosity. This will work in nearly any form: artistic, mental, erotic, intellectual. You will find it satisfying to read old books on psychology, by authors like Fritz Perls, Eric Berne, Alice Miller, and other classic writers. Above all, you need to cultivate understanding of your situation, your growth process and your creative process. This is an active endeavor, not a passive one.
Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for July 2019 (#1252)
For someone as intent as you are on leading a self-determined life, you certainly get jerked around emotionally by others quite a bit. Never the twain shall meet, as the poet Kipling wrote long ago. Yet it is only experience that will teach you this. Early in the month, you may find reason to call into question a certain emotional connection that you have with another person. Based on recent past experience, this may not be an easy ride, and it may be calling on you to question the nature of your commitment. Remember that such is not something made for you; a commitment is something you make and uphold yourself. This is true on any day, at any time during any phase of the relationship: your commitments are your business. You can keep them, you can end them, but more than anything you must evaluate them. What do you give, and what do you gain? Who benefits? I do not mean to reduce the complexity of human relationships to what might seem like a cash transaction, but in the end, relationships are transactional: there is giving, receiving, gaining, losing and exchanging — of something. There are important factors in your astrology that currently make it difficult for you to see through the fog. Yet you have moments of clarity, which either arrive as the sudden dawning of awareness, or asking yourself a question so compelling that you have to stop and think about the answer. This is right about where you are today. Use this rare opportunity well.
Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for August 2019 (#1254)
Your ruling planet Jupiter stations direct in your sign on the 11th, which may come with the feeling of some relief from pressure you didn’t know you were under. Yet it won’t be until the equinox that you get a sense of what you did not know you did not know. That is when Jupiter completes its last of three squares to Neptune. Any aspect square Neptune is slippery, and comes wrapped in fog and haze. There is an X-factor involved on several different levels, and you will have to be patient enough to see what that is. For now, I suggest you proceed with the awareness that there is missing information, potentially about something of significant importance to you. The current movement will offer you some hints as to what that might be about; Mercury changing directions on July 31 may come with a partner or adversary revealing facts or making an admission they may not be aware they’re making. Jupiter’s change of direction on Aug. 11 will help you tune in to your own self-awareness in a deeper way, though the relevant information will be easy to dismiss or overlook unless you are alert to its possible existence. It’s the interval between Aug. 11 and the equinox on Sept. 23 when you must proceed with special care, because your own impatience may get the best of you. Remind yourself you want to make all decisions with full information available, or with an understanding of what might not be currently visible to you, even though it may be right nearby.
Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for September 2019 (#1259)
Jupiter in your birth sign or rising sign is making its way toward Neptune in Pisces. We are all about to experience the Jupiter-Neptune square, and you are about to experience it in an especially personal way. The message of this transit is to be honest about your feelings. A domestic situation has been troubling you more than you’ve been willing to let on to yourself. The reason for your state of “self-concealment” (which translates to denial) is that admission of your most basic feelings would likely be followed by the recognition that you need to act on them. That, in turn, could entail considerable inconvenience and emotional upset. Yet this is a matter of whether you are willing to live the truth as you perceive it. The question I suggest you ask yourself is whether the situation as it stands today is helping you, and whether you can sustain it for much longer. You might also ask yourself the source of any hesitation. Ultimately, taking action on your situation and your feelings is the admission of your personal truth; the truth is not an abstract thing — it is the most compelling thing. Even so, here is the deeper question: what else is going on? What is this really about? There would seem to be some underlying layer that you may not want to get to. Yet not only has the time arrived; you are in a rare position to identify and resolve something that would otherwise be very difficult to pin down or act upon. Let one sane response lead to another.
Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for October 2019 (#1262)
All year long, Jupiter in your sign has been in a 90-degree, or square, aspect to Neptune. Jupiter has a 12-year orbit, and spends only one year of those 12 in Sagittarius. Usually this is as good as astrology gets for you, though there has been a challenge lately, which has been the angle to Neptune in Pisces. This has made it difficult to have any sense of standing on solid ground, or any real leverage toward meeting your goals. (Pisces has been affected in a similar way.) The square passed as of Sept. 21, and it was as if a spell was cleared, allowing you to be more realistic, and to see certain problems for what they are. The astrology is now tipping in the other direction, of gritty practicality and even urgent necessity. This will help you prioritize. But you don’t want to grind too deep into the bedrock for this. You have had a good look at your highest ideals from your experience of Jupiter-Neptune; you’ve had the opportunity to dream a little. Your task is now to put together the best attributes of your vision with just enough pragmatism to get the job done — without sacrificing either. This is one of the most basic forms of alchemy for getting anything done on the planet, particularly in this time of so much potential, and so many available creative resources. You will need to find the right mix, though there must be one — going only one way or the other will not suffice. Some things will work on one part vision and four parts business; others on four parts vision and one part business. Regardless, you must integrate the two.
Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for November 2019 (#1266)
You are in the last weeks of Jupiter in your birth sign. The ruler of your sign, it visits your sign for one year out of every 12. This time around, it may have felt like trying to expand into some substance that would not hold the shape you were pushing it into. You may be wondering what became of all the effort you exerted. One thing I suggest you make is an inventory of your ideas since January. That includes plans, whether long- or short-range; and the things you decided you wanted to do, but may have given up on, or forgotten about. (A good few things disappeared into the Jupiter-Neptune square that is thankfully behind us.) Please resurrect those ideas. Dig through your emails, scribbled-on placemats and other places you might have stashed them. Ask your friends and collaborators what they remember. Jupiter is about to change signs into Capricorn, and this will be no ordinary run of astrology. By which I mean you will be gaining considerable traction on the business and financial front, which will be building on years of work, effort and sacrifice. Jupiter through Capricorn and, starting in late 2020, through Aquarius, will bring out the practical visionary in you. You will have the thing you need the most, which is help from Saturn: time management, steady persistence, business structure, efficient use of resources. Meanwhile, Jupiter is in your sign and conjunct the Galactic Core until Dec. 2. This is pure visionary, without the practical applied yet. Let your ideas flow, write them down, and keep track of them. I mean it.
Planet Waves Monthly Horoscope for December 2019 (#1270)
How you feel about yourself is your most important resource. It is the one that grants you access to all the others. Recent events may have shown you what is possible, though this is only so if you make the total investment of faith in yourself. While that always has a relational aspect — people will either affirm you, or not — be cautious about seeking approval from others. Most of those ‘others’ are voices in your mind, representing people from the past who were not supportive when you needed them to be so. Some may have done actual damage from which you’re still trying to piece together recovery. You have everything you need. You have all the talent, commitment and perseverance. (Skills need to be acquired ongoing, and I suggest you never miss an opportunity to learn one.) Yet what regulates your access to your array of abilities and ideas is your emotional state. This is often confused with self-esteem, because it affects the way you see yourself and the basis for the choices you make. Yet it’s much more utilitarian to think of this in terms of how you feel, and what might be interfering with holding yourself in positive regard. For anyone who works their way through this, usually it takes progress and learning over time, and also gaining the basic ability to navigate emotionally. Something impacting you profoundly has a source in the distant past. If you pay attention, you will see exactly what this is. And then if you want to — but only if — you can get some resolution.