Dear Friend and Reader:
Tuesday’s Taurus New Moon is conjunct the Black Moon Lilith. A point used more frequently by European astrologers, BML or Lilith is technically called the osculating apogee, or the Moon’s point of maximum distance from the Earth. If you look up “osculating” in the dictionary, you find out that it’s about kissing — a lovely image for Beltane.
This point has an interesting property: it dances around. The “true” calculation points to the apogee being one place, then it often turns up in another. The “mean” calculation more or less stays put, or better said, drifts slowly. Lilith in astronomy, as in mythology, has the feeling of something difficult to grasp, or pin down. With Tuesday’s lunation, the mean apogee and the true apogee are in the same place, close to the New Moon.
We know Lilith as “the first woman” from various side-mythologies (mostly Medieval). She was the first wife of Adam, who was created as his equal, but Adam wasn’t having it, so she went off on her own (and in some tellings, shows up again as the serpent). She is portrayed as temptress, seductress, disagreeable and as a demon. This area of mythology is often used to explain patriarchy. Adam’s known consort Eve is subjugated, made from Adam’s rib (he was put to sleep for the procedure, and nowhere is there a reference to his waking up). Eve is not Adam’s equal. This creation myth is a real mess. It is the worst of them all.
The one in the Bible verges on hilarious. Do we really think that the all-knowing, all powerful God would just make a dude, and leave him wandering around the forest all by himself? Nobody to play drums, smoke a doobie or make out with? It sounds like a satire.
Lilith and Matters of Trust
In my Weekend Astrology Podcast, I mentioned that one thing I’ve seen Black Moon Lilith represent is the thing about women that other women don’t trust. This commenced an interesting discussion with a reader and one of our editors that I will reveal in detail on Friday’s Planet Waves FM. The discussion included what is being done socially to sex and gender in our time, and included a branch about the healing properties of power exchange in sexuality (what some call BD/SM or domination play).
We can also think about Lilith as being about a struggle for trust in existence, and in the case of Taurus, in its incarnate, maculate, physical form. You know, the lives we live in-body.
Currently we are all under the thrall of a seemingly perpetual, 24/7 marketing campaign about how you cannot trust your body, or trust existence, and you don’t have an immune system, and your body has no power to heal, and no intelligence, and so on. However, the human race and all biological entities have been adapting to viruses and bacteria for our entire existence. If you hear Zach Bush tell the story, viruses and bacteria are the vector of evolution; the blocks of the ever-evolving genetic code. Our mitochondria — the powerhouse of our cells — is made of bacterial DNA.
However, lately, there are days when life feels like it’s been downgraded from a B-rated science fiction film to a mouthwash commercial telling everyone how disgusting they are. But now the supposed solution to a disease that does not exist is genetic modification.
Save for this kind of constant messaging, we would be more inclined to trust our bodies and notice what is happening in the actual environment. People who have eaten non-GMO foods for the past 20 years would recognize they don’t want to become one.
Mars square Chiron: The Rut
One of the more interesting features in this chart is Mars square Chiron, a distinctive aspect that I associate with having so much integrity that a person is effectively blocked from living the way they want. This aspect is full of hesitation of the “I would love to do that but I shouldn’t (because I’m too pure)” variety. We all know these people; they live like Friday is a school night. Yet many people have a touch of this to some degree, and desire is under attack.
Mars represents the animus or male principle, and this is activated by the square to Chiron — though through the crisis of avoiding transmutation — that is, actually growing and changing from one point to another. Chiron represents both the sacred warrior principle, the sense of wounding and the innate power of transmutation — which is evolution.
So in this chart, we have the expression of the Moon and the Sun in Taurus filtered through profound hesitancy around trusting physical existence, which is a way of saying mater-matter-mother (New Moon conjunct Lilith), and blocked assertive energy. This blocked energy is theoretically allowed to express itself only in perceived immaculate form: the perfect sexual desire that nobody finds offensive.
Under Judeo-Christiandom, there is no such thing. All sex under Hebrew and Jewish law is ultimately offensive, disgusting, immoral, sinful or rape. And in our day, men can be anything but male, except when you need them to chop through the roof of a burning building and rescue your children and your kitten.
Expression in Distorted Forms
Mars square Chiron, with its natural flow blocked, jammed in a rut, tends to find expression in a distorted form, when what it needs is to open up and experiment. Distorted forms of masculine include any desire tainted with guilt about desire, violence, silence, aggression, or anger. These sometimes also cross over to distorted feminine.
This energy well needs to become the next thing that it wants to become, not stay the very thing that is not working. Yet most of our lives are lived in ruts. But it will force change if it needs to, which is then usually destructive.
The thing that felt most pleasant about the events of one year ago was being released from trapped and stuck patterns.
Feminine energy does the same thing. If it feels disempowered, it will resort to trickery, manipulation, sabotage or fraud to get what it wants. These sometimes also cross over to distorted masculine.
When you have billions of people living this twisted version of creative energy, they are easy to fool. You can convince them of anything. This is how suppressed orgasm leads to the charismatic leader who leads the people into tyranny, and they are happy for it. That is, until they figure out what happened.
The Way Through
There is a way through this thicket. It begins with people granting one another amnesty for their presumed past sins and transgressions. To not do this makes progress impossible. Everybody has a grudge or two, and most of them are irrelevant emotional attachments for their own sake. The next step is to commit to healing. This does not mean to become healed, but rather to commit to the healing journey and all that it entails.
Then we can commit to allowing male to be male, and female to be female. That means allowing men to be men, and women to be women. Gender bending is always optional: I am talking about what is enforced, socially or otherwise. Then we agree that men and women will experience one another as such. It is not someone’s job to cease being male or female because someone thinks it is.
People interested in relating primarily through same-sex affiliations and relationships must have that option honored and affirmed, for them. We all agree that is OK but not mandatory. Those interested in relating primarily to the opposite sex must give themselves and one another position to do so. The “heterosexual agenda,” the “homosexual agenda,” the “monogamous agenda,” and any other agendas are forms of tyranny.
Then, people can work out their power imbalances and power struggles. That part does not need to be as messy as it’s made out to be. It’s easier if we admit what we want, and not project this opposite or opposition onto someone else. Feel who you are and be who you are. Whether you are a man or a woman, live your reality, and if you want to experiment with femininity or masculinity in any combination, go for it. That is nature and that is transmutation.
Speaking of: Jupiter Ingresses Pisces on Thursday
I have mentioned a few times that the overwhelming energy of Aquarius is creating an environment were many people feel completely natural pressuring people into being just like them. There has been a massive social control impulse turned loose. The celebrities are on parade. Laurie Anderson, who wrote a brilliant song about why you should not modify your body, is advocating the genetic injection.
Way back in 2020, the force and pressure was coming mostly from above. In 2021, it is mostly lateral: virtue signaling on crank.
We are about to get some relief from all that Aquarius, in the form of Jupiter ingressing Pisces this week, for the first time in 12 years. One of the qualities lacking right now is Pisces: receptive feminine energy. Currently Neptune is there (longterm visitor, 2011-2026) but that is creating a deficit. Neptune is also about delusions and denial.
Jupiter is going to give substance to Pisces. We need this substance: some material to work with, some sense of the presence of Pisces energy in a positive and affirmative form. We all dearly need the abundance of Jupiter in Pisces. We need the allowing of Jupiter in Pisces. We need the excess of Jupiter in Pisces. In sum, we need Jupiter in Pisces and I reckon a good few people consciously want what this is about.
Jupiter is the largest planet, denser than Saturn, and (after the Sun) it rules all of the gravity in the solar system. When we shift some of that gravity into Pisces, we get into more being than thinking. The element of faith is introduced, rather than the know-it-all tendency of shadow Aquarius.
And as for wholesome Aquarius: this sign and Saturn here are utterly meaningless if we do not allow space for individual thought, and therefore, for people to be individuals: to be who they are. For many people, that’s a tough one, but it’s not so difficult as it seems.
Give yourself a little space to think for yourself, and to allow your ideas about life — and what you want from life — to flow naturally.
Faithfully,
Week Ahead Podcast with Eric Francis | May 10
Today’s Week Ahead Astrology Podcast with Eric Francis covers the Taurus New Moon on Tuesday, May 11, and Jupiter entering Pisces on Thursday, May 13. Music by Vision Quest. Read about the Philosophy of Astrology course.
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Instant Access: Aries Astrology Studio 2021-22
Aries (March 20-April 19) — Society is experiencing and witnessing an eruption of family drama on a scale rarely seen. I have not heard it described this way before, though in legal terms, nearly everything that is happening is about in loco parentis: the duty of authorities to stand as guardians rather than abuse their power. That the great majority of people are not waking up or pushing back seems to be about how accustomed we are to being treated this way. Here is a clue, that might serve as a reality check if you need one, particularly if anything happens to slip into your personal life or immediate family. Check the scope of the reaction as contrasted with any problem that seems to exist. Are these things in proportion? At what point does something become recognized as an inappropriate overreaction? You have to decide this for yourself; you set the terms of your reality, since nobody else can do it for you — even if you think they do. The content of the scenario is nearly irrelevant. The scale of the situation is what to focus on.
Self-assertive, sometimes bold, Aries is always up for an adventure. A new adventure awaits — preorder your affordable reading by Eric Francis today.
2021-22 Aries Astrology Studio: The Continuing Adventure of Chiron in Aries
Taurus Astrology Studio 2021-22
Taurus reading ready! Purchase here; sample below
Taurus (April 19-May 20) — Your fellow Taurus Adrienne Rich, in an essay called “When We Dead Awaken,” wrote: “Until we can understand the assumptions in which we are drenched we cannot know ourselves.” In our day, we could add to “assumptions,” delusions, propaganda, and toxicity in emotional, intellectual and chemical forms. Many wonder: when will everyone wake up? But the question is, are you awake? Are you living as if you are alive, and what does it mean to do so? Consider that being alive means questioning those assumptions and all their cousins consciously and vocally. That would include investigating your own tentative approach to existence, and any tendency you may have to doubt yourself before the discussion is even begun. Notice whenever you make an excuse or tell a ‘white’ lie to slip out of something without a confrontation. Ask whether you anesthetize or deaden part of yourself every time you do not object to what you know is wrong. To stand up may feel dangerous. To be alive may feel dangerous. That is the challenge.
Calm, collected and attractive on the outside, raging like a tempest on the inside, Taurus is the blacksmith shop of the soul. Forge your path with this reading.
2021-22 Taurus Astrology Studio: How to Grow, Change, and Become
Gemini (May 20-June 21) — At some point you must face the unknown. That might begin the moment you recognize that something you believed to be correct turned out not to be. You could also make a discovery that something is possible, which is the truest form of learning. The discovery you are in the process of making is about yourself, which takes the concept of learning to its most essential level: that of being. The question goes something like this: what does it mean to be real? Many people go their whole lives faking it, so they don’t have to face this challenge. It seems way too frightening to step out of the seeming comfort zone of hazy denial. There can be no denial about anything but you: the nature of the world is irrelevant because ultimately you determine your relationship to it, whatever it may be in some objective sense. Your side of the seeming equation is the more powerful of them, and it is the one that you can influence by your choices and your evaluation of your existence. You are guided at this time by thought and feeling in equal measure, though there is something else: a kind of magnetism reminding you who you are and what you want.
Geminis ask a heck of a lot of questions, and much of what you are curious about is yourself. Find some answers in your affordable reading by Eric Francis.
2021-22 Gemini Astrology Studio: Crux of the Mirror
Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Today’s New Moon takes place in the angle of your solar chart where you connect to society. This starts with the people immediately around you and ripples out a few degrees of separation. Therefore, there are many sources of infiltration from the wider world into your personal world. And at the same time, your awareness, your ideas, your feelings, your presence, sends waves out into the community around you. This may not be ‘comfortable’ to consider. For most people, standing out is the very last thing they want to do. Being any kind of shock is the last thing they want to be, and our whole society seems to have organized itself around the fictional issue of ‘not making people feel uncomfortable’. However, your chart being what it is suggests that this is not a matter of preference for you, but of accepting the influence and the role that you have, or pretending not to have it. That would amount to pretending to not be who you are. Despite the overwhelming popularity of this concept, it’s not going to work for you. In particular this relates to your own personal healing mission. Said another way, this is about your deep need to fully embody a whole new concept of responsibility.
Nurturing, loving, devoted, cuddly, milky and self-centered, Cancer has it all. You can even have instant access to your reading when you purchase today.
2020-21 Cancer Astrology Studio: I Feel, Therefore I Am
Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — As the sign that rules the heart, yours is also the sign of courage. The associations here are beautiful and deeply needed today. The heart is the seat of the emotions, and from the 14th century this word meant “valor, [the] quality of mind which enables one to meet danger and trouble without fear.” Well, you might feel fear, though you would not let it block or deter you. Fear is natural enough; what we do with it is another matter. To live in our society at this time pretty much means being inundated by sources of fear around the clock. These verge on impossible to avoid, no matter where anyone may hide. The pressure is coming in from so many angles it seems like there is no way to push back, and there may be no point. So what do you do? You can Know Thyself. Only then is courage possible. Conversely, the easiest way to terrify people is to teach them to not Know Thyself, lie to them about who they are, and distract them from who they are. If you have a spiritual path, you might refer back to that now, and work from the inside out. Learn to have an influence on yourself. To be who you are is true courage.
Leo is THE sign of human vitality and in many respects the source of strength, light and creation. How’s this for a bright idea: get your reading by Eric Francis!
2020-21 Leo Astrology Studio: Notes on Love and Courage
Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — One of the deepest aspects of the crisis of the past year has been the theft of the future. It’s as if the whole concept of potential, and the resource of time ahead of us, has been taken over and consumed by some other force. Hopes, dreams, plans, people and entities on a successful trajectory, have all evaporated. Of course, the future still exists, though the possibilities have been narrowed, as a matter of consciousness. Of course it is up to everyone to regulate their own mind, though we are all under an offensive coming in from all directions. Young people in particular are under a lot of pressure. Many feel they are looking ahead at something between absolutely nothing, the edge of a cliff and a wall. Whatever it is you felt when you were young, they do not feel today. Most of this is because they are told they must be afraid of everyone and everything — and that is no way to live. It is not living, neither for them, nor for us. Use your creative power and open the way. Help yourself and others regain a sense of potential. Choose from among the most meaningful things you can think of for yourself — desires you’ve nurtured consistently for years, or maybe something new. And help open the way for others.
As a Virgo, it’s your role to make the world a better place: to offer, if not solace, then solutions. Find both for yourself when you purchase your reading.
2020-21 Virgo Astrology Studio: I touch the Earth. The Earth touches me.
Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — Let others lead the way, though do not be deterred by their resistance. You cannot fit your reality inside that of other people. Allowing them to lead is a way of not pushing or guiding them, and if the result does not work for you, then do your own thing. Yet the temptation will be strong to attempt to exist within the boundaries of what they perceive as real, legitimate, and most of all, nonthreatening. You have different ideas. You are ready to stretch out, and explore, and get to know yourself. Sadly, this is not for everyone, but happily if it is for you, then your options remain open. It may take courage to not be pressured into doing what someone else claims is right for you, especially if they have not asked honestly whether it is right for themselves. The point where you might capitulate is this: freedom and expansion and adventure feel more dangerous than they ever have. And so it would be easy for someone to convince you that the risks are not worth the rewards. But that is your business, and you can make your own fun.
Aleister Crowley said that the essence of the sign Libra is the drive for justice. Tap into your essence with this reading, and bring balance to your world.
2020-21 Libra Astrology Studio: Notes to Myself
Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — All matters related to the body have been infused with terror the past year, to the point where people cover their faces while driving alone in their car, or walking their dog in the suburbs at 11 pm. You could look at this two ways. One is that it’s based on the perception that the body is a thing of danger, and a disease vector, to the exclusion of all other things. Or you could say it’s evidence that people are not connected with their physical existence, which in turn relates to their emotional presence. Mars, your ruling planet, is in a square aspect to Chiron, something that happens briefly about once a year. There is a perfectionism to this aspect, and an obsession with integrity, though it’s often a ruse for something else. To what extent have you questioned whether the danger is real? The question is: do you feel safe in your body, and exactly what does that mean? How much of what you do every day is about avoiding what you perceive as danger? Where does this leave you room to feel and experience pleasure, both of which require trusting your body and those of other people?
Scorpio is an odd hybrid, both a product — and an instigator — of evolution. Purchase your latest reading to delve deeper into the mystery of yourself.
2020-21 Scorpio Astrology Studio: The Scorpio File
Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — The primary personal quality to work on at this time in your life is flexibility. It is not easy for you to see how set in your ways you are. You may feel it as resistance, fear, and unnecessary skirmishes with people who are a little more easygoing than you are. Yet your self-image may be that of a relaxed and carefree person. You will know whether this is true by how you respond to others, who might for example do something like change their plans, or want to do something without you. The most important measure of your flexibility is your impulse to control others. Another is your ability to face the unknown. The need for certainty is a sign of a stiff mind. There are many variables at play in your life right now, and your ruling planet Jupiter is about to change signs and enter Pisces. This is an invitation to be a little more insecure and uncertain and not have to fill in the blanks with anything that might not be true. Stand in the face of the unknown, and let yourself welcome the experience: there is a gift for you there.
Sagittarius, yours is the sign of the quest, the far away and far-out. Purchase your reading today and continue your adventure with the stars as your guide.
2020-21 Sagittarius Astrology Studio: Live from the Galactic Center
Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — Beware the tendency to think you are doing something for someone else, for their benefit. You might try an exercise of identifying the self-interest in everything that you do. Be bold about this, and remove entirely the excuse that your conduct is in some way altruistic. Perhaps it is; perhaps it’s not; but if you try to be accountable for the way that you in fact gain by your actions, that will prove to be enlightening. You might be inclined to judge this, when you see the extent to which it’s true, though do your best to notice rather than evaluate. Claiming to do things for other people is usually an excuse. There are times when it’s true, and the only way to be aware of those occasions is to sort out when it’s not true. This exercise will help you notice when others do this, and I would propose that it’s rampant. We live in one of the most self-serving societies ever to exist, and we make it sound as if the whole thing is one enormous charitable institution. It is possible to take care of others, and it’s possible to have that in some way work for you — or not. These distinctions need to be made.
We depend upon Capricorn to hold things stable. But you’re not as boring as you like people to think you are. Unearth your inner revolutionary with this reading.
2021 Capricorn Astrology Studio: One Night Only Kala Sarpa Yoga
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — Jupiter leaving your sign and entering Pisces may at first present you with more questions than answers. Those would be the questions you have not been asking but may not have missed. They could be about anything, though mostly they are about yourself, and specifically, the basis of your relationship to the world. The language I quote most often from A Course in Miracles is, “Every decision you make stems from what you think you are.” So what you think you are is something to monitor closely, since it will become your basis for choosing. Pisces as your 2nd solar house can be prone to deep but unacknowledged insecurity. You might just take this for granted; you may not feel what is missing. What you think of as confidence may not always be self-nourishing. However there are those moments when you feel and connect with the substance of who you are. And one of those is dawning with Jupiter beginning its journey through Pisces later this week. You are likely to have the sense of a missing experience coming to you — please remember it. You will almost surely experience many gains, though the most significant is connecting in a solid and quiet way with what you have to offer.
You’re not after progress for its own sake; Aquarius is the discriminating embracer of innovation that works. Get your reading and be brilliant.
2021-22 Aquarius Astrology Studio: A Reading For Our Moment
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Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — For the past five months, you may have felt like you were trapped inside of some invisible bubble. That was the sensation of your ruling planet Jupiter going through your 12th solar house, a zone where things go missing, get lost, or are caught in a parallel dimension. With Jupiter as your significator, that would be you. Late this week, the largest and most influential planet manifests into your sign, as if it emerged from behind some kind of veil. It was always there, though out of reach. This happens with Neptune also in your sign, a much longer-term visitor (2011-2026). Neptune can create a sense of deficit. It might come across as an all-consuming vortex, adding to the sense of not quite existing — and this has been going on for a while. Speaking as a Pisces who identifies with the whole idea, my thought is this: allow this ingress of Jupiter into your sign to be about a positive, even bold change of your environment. Catch up on all the experience you’ve gained, and give yourself full credit. Make your decisions on the basis of abundance: that is a whole new sound.
The hidden realm is vitally important to Pisces: in a sense it is your home. Find your way back home, guided by your latest reading.
2021-22 Pisces Astrology Studio: Every Decision You Make
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Wonderful piece and and I so love my horoscope! Thank you, dear Eric. xxxx
I came home tonight from my writer’s class, where we do 10 minute readings from our work and then we other writers offer a (mostly) quick critique etc. The class is mostly women, of various ages, plus a young ‘gender sexless’ sort of male and a transitioning male. At the moment, I am presenting a piece which is a mythical and interworld / otherworld conversation between the ultimate Male Dominant and the ultimate Female Dominant, both of them highly experienced BDSM Practitioners and both of them Mystics. Its a face off, in many ways, two ultra equals positioning themselves into an alliance. I first presented this a week ago, then adjusted it for this week. Commentary? They are gobsmacked and the group’s women in particular, cannot yet cope with or relate to the Dominatrix. That character is heavily Lilith and Eris, as well as a lot of Chariclo. As you say: “the feeling of something difficult to grasp, or pin down.” and “the thing about women that other women don’t trust.”. My Dominatrix character is completely in the beam here and its driving the women in the group nuts!!! Which is fantastic, that’s exactly the edge driven feedback I need, so I’ll make more changes to context and surround until I can slip her under their overactive feminine threat radar. Soooo, Lilith! It takes a woman to take out another woman, in this world. Eric, you’re fantastic, Its soo good to see your work with the Astrology absolutely coming to life in one’s day to day life. Thank you!
This is why I LOVE reading your deconstructions of current astrology. They are ALWAYS helpful at a personal level.