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Dear Friend and Reader:
I am halfway done with writing the Inner Space sign chapters. These are the 2023 annual edition’s written segment. I have not done a proper beginning-of-the-year annual since 2019 (Intelligence). The 2021 annuals were spread out through the first six months of the year.
These readings are coming out to 4,000 words per sign/rising sign. Essentially, I am writing 48,000 (extra) words in about two months. These readings will come with an audio reading of about one hour. Between the written and the audio portions of the reading, you will get an excellent idea of what is going on.
And if you read both your Sun and rising sign, you will have an even better picture. The readings will rarely conflict; I am working from one guiding philosophy. They will be presenting similar information from different points of view. The signs that the planets are transiting stay the same; the houses change as the Sun or rising sign changes. I will explain this in a special short audio which accompanies each of the readings.
In short, I am able to do extraordinarily detailed readings without having anyone’s birth data. I use transiting planets, mutual aspects, knowledge of history and a gift for telling a good story. What you get in this astrology is not the technicalities but rather something you can relate to, that in some way describes your experience.
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Oversampling the Astrological Facts
When I am doing these readings, I go deep into the astrology, and study the story going backward and forward many years. I look at the frequency of events and get a sense of their relevance (which is mostly based on rarity), and also know the last time you may have experienced such an event.
I work with approximately 100 extra points – I read asteroids, centaurs, trans-Neptunian objects in several categories (Kuiper belt objects, scattered disk objects), and a diversity of make-believe planets called hypotheticals. I don’t use every point in every reading; I don’t even mention most of them. However, I’m aware of what is happening.
It would be easy enough to glance at something and dash off an interpretation. It might even be helpful. But it’s not the way I work. My role is to help you see the context of even seemingly ordinary events, and understand something about their personal significance. Here is an example.
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Venus Retrograde of 2023
One distinctive factor this coming year is Venus retrograde in Leo. Venus is retrograde about six weeks, every 18 months — the least of all the planets. By virtue of that, it is special, though there is more to consider.
Venus retrograde itself will take place from July 22 through Sept. 3, 2023.
However, Venus in Leo spans from June 5 through Oct. 8. I use the whole duration of the time an inner planet is in a sign for understanding the influence of the retrograde. Part of what happens when a planet is retrograde is that it hangs out in one part of the zodiac for much longer than usual.
The last time Venus was retrograde in Leo was in the summer of 2015. Prior to that was late 2007. And prior to that was late 1991. Then, prior to that was 1983. That rhythm works out to about once per decade. (These retrogrades are not evenly distributed, but that is a topic better suited for a scholarly article).
For each of the signs, Venus retrograde will tell a different story. It has some elements common to all of them, though each takes place in a different house for each of the signs. So I will read and interpret this one transit 12 different ways.
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Outer Planet Sign Changes
One distinction of 2023 is outer planet sign changes. These are planets orbiting our Sun, not planets of some other star (which I do not consider). When outer planets change signs in a cluster like this, there can be very rapid and unexpected changes in society.
We know that Pluto begins its sign change into Aquarius, which is the meta-theme of the whole reading. I gave a talk about that recently, which you can find here (scroll down to right above the chart for either audio or video). This sign change will span from March 2023 into late 2024. Pluto will spend 21 years in Aquarius, longer than any Pluto transit in the time that any of us have been alive.
(The longest Pluto spends in any sign is Taurus — about 30 years — next time, from 2097 through 2127. The shortest is in Scorpio, just under 14 years, most recently from 1982 through 1995.)
Pluto entering Aquarius represents a massive sea-change for the digital environment that we are in, and I comment extensively on how this influences work, relationships and personal psychology. Digital is the most important spiritual condition of our day.
But I also noticed that several other very slow-moving planets are changing signs. I don’t mean asteroids; they go flying around. I mean things like Sedna, which makes its first ingress into a new sign since entering Taurus in 1965. It will be working its way into Gemini between 2023 and 2025. Sedna has an orbit of 11,408 years. That is one heck of a slow-mover and everyone who has followed Sedna has been looking at it in Taurus since it was discovered in 2002.
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More Outer Planet Sign Changes
There are many Planet Waves readers who have developed affinities for these odd planets.
Chaos, a prime creation deity from Greek mythology, with a 309-year orbit, has been in Gemini since 2001. It is now working its way into Cancer. This means it contacts the Aries Point by square and its effect will be amplified.
Manwe has been in Pisces since 1998 and is entering Aries in 2023. Manwe is a prime creation deity from the legendarium of J.R.R. Tolkien.
Haumea, a goddess of fertility and childbirth from Hawaiian mythology, is entering Scorpio after spending thirty years in Libra. It has an orbit of 284 years. Haumea, a kind of midwife of the gods, held a long opposition to Eris in Aries for many years and was part of whatever “birthing process” Eris represented.
Finally, the centaur Asbolus is changing signs. Asbolus is one of the original centaurs, discovered in 1995. (The cluster of original centaurs, in my view, is Chiron, Pholus, Nessus, Asbolus and Chariklo. Together they comprise a whole branch of spiritual and psychological astrology — and a real boutique item.)
Asbolus has spent a little more than nine years in Gemini and is entering Cancer.
Note how many of these points make contact with the first degrees of the cardinal signs: Chaos and Asbolus entering Cancer; and Manwe entering Aries. That will magnify their influence and spread it out through this sensitive intersection of the public and the private.
I have some thoughts on what that pattern is about — for another article.
And now, back to work on your readings.
With love,
Inner Space — the 2023 Annual Edition by Eric Francis, on sale for a limited time with this 50% off coupon: innerspacehalf.