Scorpio solar eclipse | Planet Waves Astrology by Eric Francis and Friends (2024)

Dear Friend and Reader:

Mercury stations direct on Sunday, arriving with several days of extraordinary and rare astrology — a kind of once-in-a-lifetime event as Mercury in Scorpio holds a long trine to Neptune in Pisces, covered in greater detail below.

On Sunday, we had a rare hybrid solar eclipse similar to this one that happened in 2009. The astronomy is illustrated above. The total eclipse on the left was photographed by Fred Espenak aboard a ship 2,200 km west of the Galapagos; Stephan Heinsius photographed an annular eclipse, positioned in Panama for the same event.

On the most basic level of this astrology, many aspects of life that were caught in weird entanglements or confusion may already be working themselves out. You may discover the missing information that you need to make some progress on matters that have seemed stuck. The ‘truth revealed’ aspect of Mercury stationing will be in full force this weekend as well.

These past few weeks of Mercury retrograde in Scorpio have arrived with a kaleidoscope of news that reminds me of the occasional headline summaries in Robert Heinlein’s novel Stranger in a Strange Land — the story of the Martian who came to visit the Earth, which scenario unfolds while all kinds of other weird stuff is going on. Reduced to a synopsis, the news starts to sound like a description of some wild future, when in fact it’s our present moment, right now, even if right now feels like shooting the rapids without a paddle or a life vest and in some cases, without the canoe.

It’s been humorous to watch how the top story during Mercury retrograde has been a $300 million website that did not (and apparently still does not) work. It’s charming how they launched the site just as Mercury entered shadow phase and the issues only got worse. The fact that just 248 people were able to register by the third day is a good reason to pay attention to astrology.

Along the way certain other facts have emerged (in harmony with ‘the truth revealed’ quality of Mercury retrograde), such as what a scam the individual health insurance market is, and how it’s possibly becoming an even bigger scam in the changing environment of the insurance business — especially as participation becomes mandatory.

Current issue of The New Yorker spoofs the Obama Administration’s attempt to fix the Healthcare.gov website. But they seem to have got the idea from The Onion.

Pres. Obama’s often-repeated assertion that “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan,” came unraveled as many people got cancellation notices, and some got fake cancellations from their insurance carriers designed to get them to upgrade to much more expensive insurance.

Lurking under all of these questions of high finance, huge profits and who is going to pay for $20 Tylenol capsules is the question of what we need to do to actually be healthier. I’m not seeing this question being asked, in all this talk of supposed health care.

How much disease in the United States is the result of just a few factors — genetically modified crops, high fructose corn syrup (pure GMO corn by the way), hydrogenated fats, processed meats, artificial sweeteners, diets based on simple carbs (such as bleached flour) and, as a result, rampant malnutrition?

What would addressing the vitamin D deficiency do to knock down the epidemics of cardiac disease and cancer? (Apparently quite a lot, for very little expense.)

As some look to the government to save them from themselves, the question of one’s health is deeply personal. While everyone should have access to the medical system when they need it, that bears little resemblance to what prevents illness and helps us to be healthy.

What we are seeing is not exactly a national movement for wellness. So far, it’s been little other than a vast corporate (not government) takeover of the medical system with a lot of faux political controversy mixed in.

For example, what has been termed Obamacare was engineered not by the ‘left’ but rather by the right-wing Heritage Foundation. It’s not the progressive solution (the government actually intervenes, or single-payer) but rather the fascist solution (government turns control over to the corporations, which are vested with government power).

Next, in News from Inner Space

Whatever has been going on within the confines of your personal cosmos in these weeks may have had the sensation of swirling events that may still feel unresolved. You may feel like you’re in the midst of a surrealist film, the kind without a script.

Saturn with auroras visible on the south pole seen by the Cassini Space Probe in 2010. At the time, Space.com reported: “Saturn’s aurora, a ghostly ultraviolet glow that illuminates the gas giant’s upper atmosphere near the poles, has a heartbeat that pulses in tandem with the planet’s radio emissions, scientists have discovered.”

There’s the sensation of ongoing reorientation, and the message that your transitions are happening whether you feel you’re ready for them or not.

Apropos of transitions, one week ago we arrived at the midpoint of the Uranus-Pluto square, the seven-stage aspect spanning from 2012-2015 (with a wide margin on either side) that has been defining what I’ve been describing as the 2012 era. This is an urgent, tense aspect between the planet of revolution and upheaval (Uranus) and that of evolution (Pluto), which is putting everything it touches under some strain and the necessity to reconsider its entire existence.

The fourth of seven squares happened Nov. 1, which has the feeling of a tipping point in the long experiment of social progress and the attempt to set things right that (from one point of view) characterizes our phase of history. Looked at differently, many are asking themselves what will wake up the population. The real question is what will get you out of your comfort zone and out onto the edge of personal progress, learning and challenging experience.

This past Sunday’s rare, combined annular-total solar eclipse in Scorpio vented some pressure, kind of like when your ears pop from the altitude, only reaching down to your soul and equalizing the pressure between levels of yourself you may have had no idea existed.

The largest-known volcano in the solar system — the Olympus Mons, three times higher than Mt. Everest — is located on Mars. Photo: NASA.

The eclipse conjunct Saturn was and remains a reminder that while we are in physical bodies, time is a limited resource. What are you doing with the time that you have? What limits on banality are you setting for yourself?

Along the way, Mars and Chiron came to full opposition on Oct. 31, and because Mars has been slowing down a bit (just ahead of a monumental retrograde that takes place early next year in Libra), the opposition has lasted a while.

This is an aspect illustrating and calling for clarity and contrast; it represents the full expression of both Mars and Chiron, which work beautifully together, as both are in the warrior spirit. I could summarize its message as: get over yourself and do what you have to do. If you’re going to play the game, play it to win. Make your seeming disadvantages work for you.

Events of the past few weeks have represented one of the peak moments of our grand water trine, which consists of Jupiter in Cancer, Mercury, the Sun and Saturn in Scorpio, and Chiron and Neptune in Pisces. Water is that beautiful Sun-drenched stuff that surrounds your sailboat or extends along the beach, in which you can drown in a matter of seconds.

Mars in Virgo has provided the remedy to all this water: keep your focus. Make decisions based on real information. Work with precision. Use your energy wisely.

Then, Mercury Stations Direct

The next major event on the horizon takes place as part of the water trine, and it is impressive. This weekend, Mercury slows to a station in early Scorpio, making an exact trine to Neptune. Actually, there are two exact trines, one on each side of the station direct, with the three events each separated by about 24 hours.

Sholem Aleichem crater on Mercury. Photo by MESSENGER spacecraft, 2008.

Mercury trine Neptune is one of the most clairvoyant aspects, particularly when Pisces and Scorpio are involved. Intuition is worth more now than ever. There can be a miraculous flow of creativity, intuition and empathic contact with others, including those in realms besides this one. Remember we are still in the ‘thin veil’ territory of Scorpio; Mercury trine Neptune is about as thin as it gets.

The first exact trine is Saturday, Nov. 9 at 4:35 pm EST. Then the station direct happens about 24 hours later, on Sunday, Nov. 10 at 4:12 pm EST. Then the second exact trine happens 24 hours after that, on Monday, Nov. 11 at 3:46 pm EST.

The overall result is an unusually long experience of an exact Mercury trine Neptune aspect, blended with the shifting perspective of the station direct. Normally this would last for a day or so; but due to Mercury’s minuscule daily motion as the station direct happens, we will have access to it for about six days, which began Thursday or so and lasts until Wednesday.

Then Mercury makes the last of three trines to Chiron — just as good, not as long-lasting. To sum up, in the ‘truth revealed’ tradition of Mercury retrograde and especially Mercury stationing direct, there is a hearty message of ‘seek the truth and you will indeed find it’. It’s not the unavailability of truth that makes it seem so elusive — it’s the unpopularity.

And Finally, News from Japan’s East Coast

Now for the freaky, surrealist story you may not have heard about. The problems persist at the f*ckushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan.
As everyone knows, there was a massive quake and tsunami on March 11, 2011 that caused a series of catastrophic failures in nuclear reactors. [Note, we have compiled a list of articles, resources and astrology charts related to f*ckushima.]

Photo of the tsunami striking the f*ckushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The wall designed to hold back the sea was crumbled as the huge wave washed in. Photo: US EPA.

The three plants that were operating — units 1, 2 and 3, all experienced total meltdowns. That is, the reactors ran out of control, overheated and the blend of uranium, plutonium and many other toxic radioactive isotopes melted through the containment structure and have disappeared into the ground.

Yes, three massive nuclear reactor cores melted into the Earth, never to be recovered. If those cores keep melting, they have the potential to reach the deep aquifers that provide water to the 40 million people in the greater Tokyo area.

It is astounding to think that an electric utility lost three reactor cores, which are gradually boring a hole in the Earth on the way down to the water table.

This, however, is the lesser of the two problems. The more serious problem involves Unit 4, which was closed for inspection at the time of the incident and therefore did not melt down. But the containment structure was severely damaged by the explosion in a nearby reactor.

Each of these plants has something called a spent fuel pool. Nuclear fuel, whether new or spent, must be kept immersed in water at all times, so that’s where the old fuel is placed and, in the case of Unit 4 (because it was being inspected), where the new fuel was being kept.

f*ckushima Unit 4 was damaged by an explosion in an adjacent reactor. Offline at the time of the tsunami, a vast amount of fuel in its reactor pool is vulnerable to another earthquake.

There are more than 1,500 fuel assemblies in the Unit 4 pool, which is so fragile it cannot withstand another serious earthquake — and earthquakes happen frequently in that part of the world. These rods must be removed, one by one, by manually controlled robots.

TEPCO, in cooperation with U.S. engineers, are about to begin the process of removing the fuel from Unit 4’s pool. This is an extremely risky process, by which I mean that if it goes wrong (if the fuel assemblies are not immersed in water, if they touch, or if there is another earthquake), there is the potential for a far worse situation than we’ve already had at f*ckushima.

Even spent fuel can reach criticality (the fission process can begin). This is similar to what happens when a nuclear plant is functioning, with one difference — a working nuclear core has control rods that can slow down the reaction. The spent fuel pool is like a reactor core without the control rods. If a reaction starts, it can run out of control.

The scene could become so radioactive that it cannot be entered by workers ever again, and also be emitting so much radiation and heat that even robots cannot function there. A mishap could quickly soak the West Coast of the United States and eventually all of North America in nuclear fallout.

View into the the spent fuel pool of Unit 4, suspended in a fragile building 100 feet above the ground. All the fuel must be removed by manually controlled robots, which could take years.

The fuel is covered in zirconium alloy cladding, which is flammable and explosive. One small mishap can set off the entire pool, which could spread to a nearby common fuel pool, where 6,375 more spent fuel assemblies are kept.

Removal of fuel from Unit 4’s pool was originally scheduled for this month, after many months of preparation. It may still begin in November and is expected to take well over a year to complete, if it goes well. Decommissioning the entire site will take decades, if it’s ever complete.

Now, here’s a question. Have you read about this anywhere, or seen it mentioned on cable news, or network news? I have not. It’s as if the whole thing is not happening, except if you go looking for the information. On one level it’s available, and on another, the gatekeepers who could inform many people what’s happening are not doing so.

Instead, we got a propaganda film shown on CNN on Thursday night, called Pandora’s Promise, about how nuclear power might be the only thing that can save the environment.

They must be talking about some other planet.

Lovingly,

Additional research on f*ckushima: Chad Woodward, Elizabeth Michaud and Susan Scheck. Their work is collected here.

We’ll be back after a word from our nuclear propagandists

Just as engineers at the tsunami-ravaged f*ckushima nuclear plant get ready to move 1,524 fuel assemblies from the spent fuel pool, CNN aired a 2013 “documentary” called Pandora’s Promise by Robert Stone.

The premise of the film is how alleged ecological activists have thought about it for a while and have come to the conclusion that nuclear power is good for the environment.

Its takeoff point is that we have to do something about global warming — and that something is to build a lot of nuclear power plants, so that we can power up every place from New Jersey to Namibia (spreading the gospel of cheap electricity to the developing world).

The “documentary” had so many problems (or rather, innovative design features) I am having trouble deciding where to begin analyzing them. I think, however, that the most serious was the point of view of its director, stated in a panel discussion hosted by Anderson Cooper, that as a result of nuclear power, “Nobody has died, nobody has gotten sick and according to the best science in the world, nobody ever will.”

Nobody? Ever? Right. He tried to make the case that everyone who responded to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster is fine (well, except for a few who are not, who don’t matter that much), and everyone who responded to f*ckushima are all doing great. The American nuclear industry has an impeccably perfect record.

To put it politely, everything in this movie is a lie or delusion told by people who are seduced by the seemingly supernatural power of nuclear technology and who have succumbed to the dark side. Physicists explain how it’s fantastic in theory, skipping over what can go wrong.

Like the rest of the nuclear industry, the documentary does not address any worst-case scenarios, which must be ignored if the agenda is to persist. For example, what happens if there is a power grid outage with the plants shut down, and there’s no electricity to run the cooling systems?

Three Mile Island, near Harrisburg, PA, became the visual symbol for all that was wrong with nuclear power. Unit One to the left is still operating; Unit 2 melted down and has not been used since the accident. Photo: Atomic Archive.

Nuclear power plants make energy when they’re on and draw power when they’re off. An energy ejection from the Sun could knock out a huge swath of the power grid. Then what? Not discussed; not mentioned.

What about a meltdown near a big city? You cannot evacuate Tokyo or the metro New York area; there are no plans to do so. Not mentioned.

The idea that the potential for a low-probability but catastrophic event has to be ignored is a central argument of my nuclear power mentor Karl Grossman, who documents how the atomic bomb and nuclear power are the same thing — a fact that the film went to some length to dismiss.

Among those featured were Stewart Brand, devoted pro-nuclear founder of theWhole Earth Catalog; Mark Lynas (a British climate change author and activist), Richard Rhodes (journalist and historian, and author of the Pulitzer-winningThe Making of the Atomic Bomb) and Michael Shellenberger (alleged environmental policy expert), all of whom came to the conclusion that nuclear power is the only thing that can save us from global warming.

Helen Caldicott, a doctor and anti-nuclear activist, makes a cameo. Actual environmental advocates were portrayed as fear mongers who are the real problem. This is the ‘blame the messenger’ / An Enemy of the People argument that is getting so old I am surprised anyone falls for it, but hey, we’re talking about humans.

What could possibly go wrong? Aftermath of 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the Ukraine.

Anderson Cooper’s panel, aired several times through the night, included Ralph Nader, whom Shellenberger accused of being the problem. He said that frantic ’60s- and ’70s-styled Earth Day-types — not radiation — were to blame for unfair public perception of the industry as dangerous. That, in turn, shut down development of new nuclear plants after the 1979 Three Mile Island accident (therefore, the industry could not be given a fair chance).

Watching Pandora’s Poison reminded me of my teenage conversations with my father, who was on the public relations team that tried to clean up after the Three Mile Island accident. Prof. Coppolino went on to be a nuclear power industry communications consultant. What I learned from my father is that the nuclear industry believes that its product is absolutely, perfectly, unquestionably safe.

“We don’t know what to do with the nuclear waste,” I once said.

“I’ll give you that,” he replied. Turns out that was extremely generous of him.

Pandora’s Promise would not go that far — they argued that the problem of nuclear waste was solved perfectly by above-ground, dry cask storage. All the waste generated by all the nuclear power plants in the U.S. so far would merely cover a football field. And hey, it’ll be perfect after a few millennia — except of course for the plutonium, which takes a little longer. Unless the fuel in some storage facility reaches criticality and an uncontrolled fire starts. Or unless someone bombs the place, or if there is a quake and the casks break or…

— Eric Francis

Mercury direct; Jupiter retrograde

Mercury, which has been retrograde in Scorpio since Oct. 21, finally stations direct this Sunday, Nov. 10 at 4:12 pm EST. This means we’re entering the ‘storm’ phase now: the two or three days on either side of a Mercury station, when communication, travel and electronics can be especially problematic. Notice when you’re not fully focused on the task at hand.

Jordan Pond in the mist, Acadia National Park, Maine. Photo by Amanda Painter.

Planets do not actually change directions — retrogrades are a trick of perception, giving the illusion of reverse movement relative to our position here on Earth. Astrologically, however, the days around a station carry some tension as Mercury, the fastest of planets, seems to slow down to a stop. It takes a while to pick up speed after its station; so should you, through at least the beginning of next week.

Imagine a large ship throwing its engines in reverse to stop and back up (or vice versa): the water churns. With Mercury in Scorpio, a water sign, that churning could very well stir up all kinds of surprising insights from our darker depths. There is often a sense of ‘the truth comes out’ when Mercury stations direct — as though after a three-week journey of introspection, the planet representing our minds finally releases its discoveries into full consciousness.

Mercury’s retrograde in Scorpio has likely focused you on themes regarding your sexual history; the role of denial in your intimate life or in how you handle your resources (including but not limited to money); secrets regarding sex or death; and what factors determine when you do or do not communicate these things to your partner(s).

If you have not been tracking these themes in your life over the last couple weeks, consider taking a few moments to think back to spot any patterns or trends. Doing so might help you notice subtler “a-ha” moments during the station direct.

Chart showing the moment Mercury stations direct in Scorpio. Planets in aspect to Mercury include: Pluto and Venus in Capricorn (top of chart), in a loose sextile to Mercury; and Neptune in Pisces (far left), exactly trine Mercury. See glyph legend here.

Eric has described Mercury stations as “bring[ing] out a layer of awareness or understanding that can feel like pulling back a curtain on the obvious.” That pretty much sums up coming out of denial, a theme of recent weeks.

Mercury will station direct in a trine (aspect of ease) to Neptune in Pisces. A Mercury-Neptune trine emphasizes creativity, psychic awareness, and a poetic but practical type of idealism. Sounds like whatever truth is revealed to you Sunday can be used toward inspired or visionary purposes; pay attention to your dreams over the next few days.

Finally, it is worth noting that Jupiter stationed retrograde in Cancer Thursday — “trading places” with Mercury in a sense. Jupiter is the planet of expansion, and in Cancer, that quality is being applied to all things domestic and nurturing, and our emotions. Jupiter’s retrograde is long — lasting until March 6 — so we’re in for a four-month review of how we’ve been handling the things and people we’re charged with nurturing and caring for, including our material success.

Jupiter stationing retrograde is a caution against getting stingy (with money and with intangibles) for the next few months. First, however, the Mercury storm: be focused and careful with financial transactions and emotionally charged communication over the next several days.

— Amanda Painter
Note to Readers: News items below are written and edited by a team consisting of Anne Craig, Eric Francis, Amanda Painter, Susan Scheck and Carol van Strum,with research assistance by the Planet Waves staff. Special thanks to the Fact Checkers List, which goes over each edition on Thursday night — and to our main astrology fact-checker Alex Miller, and Amanda, who goes over all their suggestions. Our editions are also proofread and fact-checked by Jessica Keet.

Hardcore Conservatives Not Celebrating Much These Days

New York City voters elected public advocate Bill de Blasio, the first Democratic mayor since David Dinkins left office in 1993, by a record-breaking 49 point spread. The race was widely considered a referendum on the past two decades of Republican leadership.

Bill de Blasio and family at the Park Slope Armory YMCA after winning the New York City mayoral election. Photo: James Keivom / New York Daily News.

Outgoing Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was perceived as a standard-bearer for the city’s wealthiest, and continued his predecessor Rudy Giuliani’s uber-authoritarian law enforcement tactics, such as stop-and-frisk, where pedestrians are detained, frisked and asked to empty their pockets. They are then arrested if they have a small amount of marijuana, which would have been legal had it remained in their pocket.

De Blasio campaigned against stop-and-frisk, and has promised a tax on residents making over half a million dollars a year that will fund universal pre-kindergarten.

Virginia residents chose the lesser of two evils and elected former Democratic National Committee chair and Clinton intimate Terry McAuliffe over Ken Cuccinelli by a two percent margin. Cuccinelli’s loathing for women and sexuality — he supported “personhood” bills that would have criminalized not just abortion but birth control, and had a curious obsession with Virginia’s anti-sodomy law — helped Virginians overcome any distaste for political insiders or lingering doubts about the Affordable Care Act, which the Cuccinelli campaign had hoped would swing votes their way.

And in an outcome that surprised no one, New Jersey’s governor won a second term over Democrat Barbara Buono. While hardly a progressive darling, Republican Chris Christie sounds moderate enough (and was seen in photos with Pres. Obama) to have aggravated the far right on numerous occasions. His win adds to speculation that he may be a contender for a spot on the 2016 Republican ticket — but he has problems in his past that could make that unlikely.

Numerous races that didn’t make it onto the national radar turned out well for progressive candidates and causes. Among other cheering tidbits, three out of four anti-fracking measures passed in Colorado, liberals swept city council races in Missoula, Montana, and the small town of Coralville, Iowa, resoundingly rejected a well-funded takeover attempt by Koch-funded Americans for Prosperity candidates.

SCOTUS Refuses Attempt to Preserve Sodomy Law

Ken Cuccinelli II, Virginia’s attorney general and Republican candidate for governor defeated in Tuesday’s election, apparently shot his campaign in the foot with his effort to preserve an outdated sodomy statute. Virginia’s “crimes against nature” law — which bans oral and anal sex — became a tipping point for voters in his race with Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe, who won.

“Open wide and take it like a…” Virginia is for lovers after all. AP photo of Ken Cuccinelli.

All state laws of this sort, known as sodomy laws, were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 2003 ruling Lawrence v. Texas, which decided that private sexual conduct by consenting adult civilians is protected by the U.S. Constitution under the due process clause. Before 2003, 47 states, Washington D.C. and four territories had repealed their sodomy laws on their own, despite their being legal.

In October, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Cuccinelli’s appeal of a lower court’s ruling that had struck down Virginia’s anti-sodomy law in March 2013. That decision had focused on a 2005 case convicting a 47-year-old man who had solicited oral sex from a minor. Cuccinelli and his supporters claimed the law was necessary to protect children from sexual predators.

However, the Virginia General Assembly has had 10 years to update the law so that it could be used to prosecute predators without conflicting with the 2003 SCOTUS ruling and the Constitution.

A claim by Cuccinelli that the anti-sodomy law “is not — and cannot be — used against consenting adults acting in private” is belied by a 2009 statement suggesting his true agenda: that “hom*osexual acts are wrong and should not be accommodated in government policy.” Said another way, he’s trying to reestablish the old assertion that hom*osexual = child molester.

Perhaps given the history of Virginia’s sodomy law, the lag in fixing the wording should be no surprise: in 1778, Thomas Jefferson drafted a law (rejected by the Virginia State Legislature) mandating castration as the punishment for men committing the act — intended as a ‘softer’ punishment than the death penalty.

puss* Riot Update: Siberian Silence

News that Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, one of two jailed members of Russian feminist punk band puss* Riot, is being transferred to a new penal colony has been a mixed blessing — at least her loved ones know she’s alive. Two weeks of silence from prison officials about the 23-year-old had been raising fears of the worst among her supporters.

Three members of puss* Riot were originally arrested: (L to R) Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Aliokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich. Samutsevich was acquitted. Photo: Sergei Chirikov /EPA.

Tolokonnikova and another member of puss* Riot were jailed after they participated in a February 2012 protest against Vladimir Putin in a Moscow cathedral.

In September, she penned an open letter in The Guardian UK detailing the horrific treatment of prisoners in her Mordovian penal colony — considered one of the worst in Russia — and announcing her decision to wage a hunger strike in protest (see Planet Waves coverage here).

Tolokonnikova’s husband, Pyotr Verzilov, announced on Twitter Tuesday that a reliable source had confirmed she is being moved to a penal colony in a region of Siberia four time zones away from Moscow. He wrote that she is being transferred “as punishment for the resonance of her letter.”

Russia still transfers prisoners in secret, often by train and with an unknown destination. Depending on the number of stops at “transit prisons,” a transfer can take anywhere from two weeks to two months — all the while keeping a prisoner’s family in the dark. (Prisoner transfer is also often secretive in the U.S., but takes less time.)

According to Russia’s rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin (as reported by Huffington Post via Interfax), prison officials claim her health is acceptable after having been put on an IV drip while on hunger strike; she is eating; and she is being accompanied by a doctor during the transfer. Tolokonnikova is set to be released in March.

Washington GMO Labeling Law Referendum Still Uncertain

Most news outlets are saying the Washington State measure to adopt mandatory GMO labeling on food failed to pass in Tuesday’s election. Supporters are saying: Not so fast. If passed, it would become the second state to have a GMO law on the books, after Connecticut — which seeks to turn labeling into a regional affair.

Initial reports from the Washington Secretary of State said the initiative is trailing with 45 percent of the vote (55 percent opposed) with about 60% of the vote counted. However, Washington is a mail-in vote state, and final results may not be known for a week or more, with an official number due by Nov. 26. According to an email from Food Democracy Now, about 600,000 votes remain to be counted.

State Senator Maralyn Chase shows the first election results of I-522 to Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap CEO David Bronner CQ during the Yes on I-522 campaign party in Seattle’s Pioneer Square neighborhood. Photo: Erika Schultz / The Seattle Times.

The Yes on I-522 campaign is still optimistic. Those who live in Seattle and surrounding counties, who have supported the measure in polling, tend to mail their ballots at the last minute, and so election results are often late, said a spokesperson. They believe that these late votes will be enough to pass the initiative.

The initiative was first submitted in February 2013 by grassroots labeling advocates who had collected more than 320,000 signatures, enough to place it before the legislature. Since there had been no resolution in the legislature by April, when the session ended, the measure was placed on the ballot. A similar measure in California was defeated in the November 2012 election.

As in California, the initiative was hotly contested, with opponents — led by Monsanto, DuPont and the Grocery Manufacturers Association — throwing $22 million into the ring, three times the amount as did proponents Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, Mercola.com and others. A complete list of supporters can be found here, and previous Planet Waves coverage here and here.

Connecticut’s governor signed the nation’s first mandatory GMO labeling law in June 2013, but it contains some conditions that must be met before it can go into effect: four other states must enact similar legislation, one of which must share a border with Connecticut, and the combined population of the Northeastern states that enact GMO-labeling laws must total more than 20 million in population based on the 2010 census.

The conditions were set to protect “local farming by ensuring that the regional agriculture market has adopted the new labeling system before placing an undue and disproportionate burden on Connecticut farmers that requires them to analyze and label products,” according to a press release from the Connecticut Governor’s Office.

In 2013 nearly half of U.S. states have introduced bills requiring labeling or prohibiting GMO foods, according to the Center for Food Safety. CFS has several model bills for those wishing to get an initiative started in their state. Contact them at office@centerforfoodsafety.org.

You’re Only as Sick as Your Secrets

The allied nations and the American body politic have been dragged kicking and screaming into some family therapy, with 30-year-old Edward Snowden in the role of the courageous problem child — or rather the chess prodigy — who makes the family rethink everything.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel shows her displeasure over the alleged tapping of her very official-looking cell phone by the NSA. Photo: Julian Stratenschulte / AP.

If you’re German Chancellor Angela Merkel, you can call Obama on the phone and tell him to quit listening to your phone calls. Ordinary folk lack that option, but a consensus seems to have emerged in the wake of National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden’s disclosures about NSA practices: the agency overstepped.

Some of the mind-boggling breadth of the snooping-in-progress is simply the result of there being just so much more data out there to collect in the information age. Spying itself is nothing new.

From Merkel’s phone call to Obama to the about-face of Patriot Act authors (who are now sponsoring the “Freedom Act” in an effort to restrict warrantless wiretaps and mass data collection and increase transparency), a lot that was under the table is now squarely on top of it.

Last weekend featured much discussion of whether Snowden, currently granted “limited asylum” in Russia, should be granted clemency; not on the table, say U.S. officials. Snowden hasn’t requested it, although he has asked for the support of the worldwide community and, in a manifesto published in Germany on Sunday, says that the debate taking place proves he did the right thing.

Snowden reportedly took some 50,000 files when he left the NSA, and has released only about 1 percent of the information so far. A former NSA director told The New York Times recently that spymasters should lay all of their cards on the table and ‘fess up to everything Snowden could possibly say.

What’s unclear is whether any reform imaginable can ever fully restore the level of individual or international privacy presumed and taken for granted before the era of Homeland Security forming an alliance with the age of info-tech. Private corporations routinely partner with public agencies in “fusion centers” where the mission has shifted from counterterrorism to protection against “all hazards.” Apparently, we’re all “hazards” now.

p*rno Sex Versus Real Sex: The Foodie Version

Much has been written recently about how easy it is to view Internet p*rn, and to what extent it is influencing the way people think sex is supposed to happen. Finally, here’s the perfect video (posted by Egotastic!) to put the super-human body parts and skills in p*rn into better perspective… using food. Laugh at the imagery, and take comfort in the statistics: chances are, you and your partners are perfectly normal. And tasty.

Mercury direct, Sun conjunct Saturn and Monogold

Link to program.

As the Scorpio sky continues to deepen, Planet Waves FM explores the themes coming along with that — a conjunction of the Sun and Saturn Wednesday, introspective Mercury turning direct on Sunday and a recap of the eclipse cycle we just experienced.

The incredible Monogold, musical guest on Planet Waves FM.

Closing up the first set, I look at the issues the world is facing at the f*ckushima nuclear power station in Japan.

My musical guest is the magnificent, incomparable Monogold, who I saw play at BSP last Friday evening.

In Act 2, I continue my sexual advocacy rant, pulling back the veils one by one and getting a look at what is back in the shadows. Note to Scorpios — on Tuesday I recorded your astrology reading for the 2013-2014 solar year.
The reading consists of two sections of astrology and one of tarot, presented in patient, clear detail, light on the astro-talk and rich in psychological insight.

By the way — there’s now a second podcast on Planet Waves FM, featuring indie music. It’s centered at Backstage Studio Productions but you hear about all kinds of great stuff you might not discover otherwise. This week I host with my guitar teacher Dan Sternstein. Here is a direct link.

Behind the Veils of Scorpio – Reading by Eric Francis

Listen to 15 minute preview — and order.

This year has brought the most interesting Scorpio astrology that I ever remember. An unusual eclipse, Mercury retrograde and Saturn all in your sign — plus Pluto in the spotlight of history — I cover all of this and more in your birthday reading.

Topically, I guide you through the process of aligning with your environment, creating clear agreements with others and the use of time as an ally rather than as something you might struggle with.

In the second section, I take the journey inward and guide you through the process of getting to know the most intimate aspects of who you are, and revealing your innermost secrets to yourself.

While that will be happening for you with or without an astrology reading, being in tune with your planets and knowing something about their message for you will make the process easier and open up the potential for greater creativity in your growth and evolution.

I also include a 30-minute tarot reading using the Voyager tarot by James Wanless, photos of your cards and the chart that I’ve used, access to prior years’ readings and a few other things as well.

Listen to 15 minute preview — and order.

We are happy to offer once again one of our most popular products: the Planet Waves All-Access Pass for 2014. The All-Access Pass is for members who want access to everything we offer in a calendar year. In recent years our product line has grown considerably, and the response from our All-Access subscribers has been overwhelmingly positive. You can read about everything that’s included with an All-Access pass here. For those who can’t get enough Planet Waves astrology, it’s an unbeatable value. Plus, if you order now, we’ll include the rest of the readings that come out in 2013, and you’ll save $100.

Your Monthly Horoscopes — and our Publishing Schedule Notes

The extended monthly horoscope for November was published Friday, Oct. 25. Inner Space for November was published Friday, Nov. 1. We published Moonshine for the Aries Full Moon Tuesday, Oct. 15. Moonshine for the Scorpio New Moon was published Tuesday, Oct. 29. Please note, we normally publish the extended monthly horoscope on the first Friday after the Sun has entered a new sign; Inner Space usually publishes the following Tuesday but for now it’s substituting for one Friday horoscope a month.

Weekly Horoscope for Friday, Nov. 8, 2013 #974 | By Eric Francis

Aries (March 20-April 19) — If you have something to say, then say it. I understand you may be hesitating, but I suggest you not miss this opportunity, and that in support of that, you not give yourself excuses to chicken out. Yes, this is one of those situations where you don’t know the effect that revealing something intimate may have on a personal relationship. But you can surmise the effect of not doing so, which is to remain stuck or feeling like there’s no space for you to be yourself. In fact there is space, and you can test that out by being clear, straightforward and explicit, and not holding back any aspect of what you think, what you feel, or what you want. You risk flipping the whole situation from something that feels stagnant to something that actually turns you on.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — The ongoing revelation known as your life is about to teach you something about yourself. This is likely to fall into the ‘what you’ve known all along’ category but somehow missed or failed to take conscious note of. With Saturn making its way across your relationship angle, it’s essential to keep your eye on the bottom line, whatever that is for you. You know that stability and commitment are your basic foundations. What the stars are now saying is that in any structured relationship, there must be room to change, grow and exchange ideas that can actually influence the situation. You have a safe container. Now, the question is how far you will go to use it in a creative and evolutionary way. In other words: you have selected your relationship style for a purpose. Now is the time to put that purpose to use.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Any health issues you’re facing are likely to be stress related. Those are the ones that don’t show up on X-rays, blood work, urine tests, CAT scans or dog scans. They’re the ones that most doctors miss or cannot quite identify. If you’ve recently sought medical advice, you might want to seek a second opinion from someone who specializes in the mind-body connection; but more to the point, I suggest you personally look at the connection between what you are feeling and what you’re experiencing physically. This may involve your role in a sexual relationship. You may be over-exerting yourself in some way — that is, trying to impose your will on someone, or alternately, someone may be trying to exert their will on you. Time management could be a question; it’s become clear, if nothing else, that you must pace yourself, and that others must support you in that.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Your life will not spin out of control if you give yourself a little room to experiment. It may seem like existence has been denying you some of the deeper pleasures you desire, though it’s also true that on some level you’ve been avoiding them. This may be because you’re not in the mood to take risks, or because you’ve been pursuing what you regard as more practical matters. In any event, the weather and the tides are shifting, and you’ve been seeing signs of this on your personal horizons for a week or so now, perhaps longer. This is a deeper re-evaluation than it may seem on the surface, involving harmonizing your personal needs and desires, your desire to play and express yourself, and a spiritual dimension. As for the latter, Jupiter in your birth sign is reminding you that the whole concept of ‘spiritual’ is useless unless it leads to happiness and pleasure.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — You seem to be doing a pretty good job at avoiding being emotionally overwhelmed, despite having a number of excuses to feel that way. You have the ability to withdraw part of yourself into a secret location. I suggest you avoid that tendency, though, and move in the opposite direction — that is, stay close to the surface of your awareness. Be present for yourself and the people around you. Maintain some equilibrium between your inner life and your immediate environment. Said simply, you’re better off if you reveal to others how you feel, which may not involve explaining it in detail but rather with a simple statement and allowing yourself the space to be exactly as you are. This is not about there being no place to hide; it’s about opening the windows and allowing in fresh air and sunshine.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — There is little point trying to organize the mental details, an exact plan or trying to get control by collecting all of the information that’s out there. You’re probably feeling the inclination to exert your power that way, an impulse that can be better directed. There’s a very good point to knowing where you stand with yourself at all times, even if you don’t have words for it. In other words, the most vital information you can have is your own opinion, and what your intuition is telling you. You don’t need to know what everyone else thinks or what is motivating them; you merely need to know what is motivating you, and put that information to work. While you’re sometimes reluctant to trust your intuition if you don’t have some other form of data, you’re now in territory where your hunches can trump what seem like hard and cold facts. That’s the problem with them — their inflexibility. Notice that your intuition will keep you responsive to your feelings and your environment from moment to moment, updating you constantly.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — I suggest you respond to a burning desire rather than denying it or trying to pretend it’s not affecting you. You may have tried to compartmentalize this one many times, and it hasn’t worked. Now you get to burst out of those compartments, and it’s probably going to feel awesome. It could be awesome in that org*smic way, or like when a shard of glass that got embedded in your skin years ago finally makes its way to the surface, tearing the skin to get out but it feels awesome because it’s finally getting out. Or as is most likely, a deep inner truth that you’re finally coming to terms with, which is arriving with an awesome sense of relief. It’s a beautiful thing to actually feel committed and passionate, and to put the two together. It’s awesome when you allow yourself to acknowledge the love that you feel.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) –Think of this moment as a focal point where numerous themes, issues and story lines both intersect and diverge. Everything you’ve done has led you to this point, and you can take your life many different directions from here. You may know this on one level, yet you seem poised to discover it on another. There is an image in your chart about bringing these two levels of awareness together — and stepping fully into what you know, including what you know about where you’ve been. There are some experiences you don’t want to repeat, and others that you want to explore more deeply; you’re also becoming aware of what you’ve never done before that you simply must experiment with. Most significantly, there are places you want to go, by which I mean with every cell of your DNA sending the same message, and I suggest you make plans to visit at least one of them within the next six months.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — At a certain point, you’re going to have to think of yourself as being something other than emotionally wounded. It’s true that you’ve suffered some injuries; everyone has, and you have a few that stand out in comparison to the people you know. It’s just that carrying around that idea makes something that happened in the past realer than it is, and realer than it needs to be. You may not be able to directly address the past situation; you may not be able to resolve it. But information is becoming available from another part of your consciousness which may show you two things: one is how you’ve put what happened in the past to good use, and I do mean very good use. The other is that while you may have some memory or personality matrix organized around this past event, you have in fact moved beyond it, and no longer need to define your personality or the trajectory of your life around this thing.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) –It’s not easy to take even a single step outside of the reasoning that love is good and lust is bad, which reasoning is based on the notion that there is some actual distinction to be made. Sure, checking out someone’s ass as they walk down the street is different from deep and abiding friendship. Yet that fact alone does not make one bad and the other good, or one fake and the other real. Both are natural, and for your purposes, what is natural is healthy and related to everything else that’s a fact of nature. At the moment your tendency is likely to be running in the direction of lusty passion, a sensation that’s going to grow stronger over the next few days. This is more likely to put you into the company of people you’re in harmony with.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — You can finally divorce your parents. It’s about time. The thing about some divorces (if not all) is they make it easier to move on and be friends. The thing about divorcing your parents is that this makes it possible for the kid who is grafted to them, or toan idea of who they are (or were), to step up and be an adult. It’s not easy to see the influence that unhealthy bonding with mother and father has, especially if that influence is everywhere. You have reached the point in your life when you know it’s time to be your own authority. That’s the only way to get over what some call ‘authority issues’. It’s not necessary to project authority onto others, then rebel against it. I would say that if you want to be happy, it’s necessary to claim the right to run your own life. It’s not easy but it is possible — now.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — If you knew how protected you are, you would worry a lot less. Yet you still have a layer of learning, or programming, that says you have to be vigilant every minute, and to discern, in advance, the influence that something will have on you. I would point out that vigilance and fear are two different things, and that you’re now at a different level of learning. You have mastered, or at least reached, an advanced level on certain skills, including problem-solving. While at one time you may have learned that it’s not a good idea to use your ability to get out of trouble as an excuse to be careless, you can now count on it a little more. Yet something else is working for you, which is a guidance system that it’s taken you years to cultivate. This is a form of vigilance operating beyond normal awareness, working in the background, and with considerable support from what you might think of as spiritual agency. You can trust it; events in the coming days will show you that.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1300. Photo by NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team.

Dear Friend and Reader:

It’s now hurricane season, a time of year when the conditions are correct for the formation of big, cyclonic storms. Hurricanes get their energy from the ocean’s warmth, and as the oceans have increased in temperature, more energy is available. You might describe the positions of the planets this way as well: the hotter they get, the more energy is available here on Earth.

The short version of the story is that the Sun is now moving through the Uranus-Pluto square — what I call the 2012-era aspect. We are also about to experience two powerful eclipses concurrent with Mercury retrograde in Scorpio. The combined result will be a sustained phase of planetary energy that will make itself known many ways.

In one sense the whole year has led to this moment — the extended moment of autumn 2013. In reality the setup goes back a lot further; let’s see if I can bring you up to date. (If you want further background, search for an article called The Road to Xibalba in the Planet Waves archives.)

Around 2008, an aspect pattern started forming, which involved Pluto ingressing Capricorn. If you were following the astrology blogs at the time, it was just about the only topic going. Pluto is a slow-mover (the slowest-moving planet used by most astrologers, who will be catching up to the Kuiper Belt and Eris in their next lifetimes). Slow means influential; slow means that Pluto events last a while. Pluto means that nothing is the same after he’s come through town.

Speculation about Pluto in Capricorn goes back many years; it was perceived in advance as one of those really ominous transits, and now we are in the midst of it. Pluto in a sign helps define a whole era of time, concentrating and focusing change in the topic areas associated with the sign in question. Depending on where Pluto is in its orbit, it can take between 12 and 30 years to make it through one sign. It will be in Capricorn until 2023-2024.

The subject area of Capricorn is the structure of society. Corporations, governments, families and traditions all are covered by Capricorn.

Pluto is both creative and destructive. It brings change, and in the path of those changes there can be considerable progress. Yet the door can also open up for some serious negativity. One example was the Saturn-Pluto opposition of 2001-2002. A few astrologers predicted terrorism for this era; none that I am aware of predicted a world war lasting 12 years and counting.

The first year that Pluto touched the foothills of Capricorn, we experienced the financial collapse of 2008. I can still see the smirk on Henry Paulson’s face as he announced that the bailouts would begin, trying so hard to suppress his glee. I remember well John McCain suspending his presidential campaign, allegedly to solve the problem with his own bare hands. Financial institutions were collapsing in house-of-cards style, and the money was flowing freely.

Astrologers around the world muttered, “Pluto in Capricorn has begun.” (Banking policy spotters around the world muttered, “yep, I told you so.” They had.)

In 2011, another (somewhat quicker) slow-mover — Uranus — ingressed Aries. On that very day (March 11, 2011), within hours of the ingress, a tsunami and earthquake took out a chunk of Japan, causing a huge mess at several nuclear power plants, the most famous of which was f*ckushima.

Astrologers around the world muttered: “Oh sh*t. Uranus in Aries. And oh. Uranus square Pluto. Here we go.” Those who follow global astrology no doubt noticed the connections of both transits to the Aries Point — the first degree of Aries, where all things political intersect with all things personal.

Everyone remembers 2011, the year the Uranus-Pluto square really began: the protests that spread through the Middle East and across North Africa; the protests in Wisconsin; and then that autumn, the worldwide Occupy movement began in a private park in New York City. Real people were taking their bodies to the scene of the crime and demanding action.

And you may remember, if you haven’t suppressed it, the agony of that first month after the meltdowns in Japan, as the truth slowly came out. People who understand nuclear power know that it’s perhaps the most personal-as-political thing there is if, for instance, a little strontium-90 lodges in one’s bones.

The Uranus-Pluto square has been working its way across the signs Aries and Capricorn, and will make a total of seven contacts. The next one is on Nov. 1. It is the midpoint of the cycle — the fourth of seven events. There will be another during the next eclipse season, on April 21, 2014; and then another on Dec. 15, 2014. The last will be on March 16, 2015. Then the energy of the aspect will slowly wane, though it can do so with considerable influence, even for another five years.

Every now and then (quite a bit, lately), other planets get into the aspect pattern, and bring its properties out into the open. For example, Jupiter is now in Cancer, making what’s called a T-square with Uranus and Pluto.

Recently Venus and then Mercury passed through Libra, completing a grand cross. Challenging events associated with Mercury’s passage through the aspect were the Colorado floods and the mass shooting at the Navy Yard. When that Libra leg of the cross is filled, it can be intense. Part of that is because the grand cross is the most powerful aspect pattern. Adding to the energy is the fact that there’s a little-known slow-moving planet, similar to Pluto, already in Libra opposite Uranus and square Pluto — Typhon, the namesake of typhoons.

The first thing that happens this autumn is that the Sun in Libra passes through the aspect structure. On Oct. 1, the Sun will square Pluto (that is deep, introspective and compelling changes that can take root on the soul level). On Oct. 3 it will make an opposition to Uranus (surprises, shocking developments, revelations, inventions), and over the next few days, a conjunction to Typhon (exact Oct. 6) (perhaps passing through the eye of the storm). On Oct. 12, the Sun will make a square to Jupiter, which tends to magnify things and also provoke decisions.

Even if these aspects were happening inisolation from each other, we would feel them. That they are happening concentrated within a few days means there is likely to be a global effect. You don’t need a crystal ball to guess what that effect might be — some lunatics in Congress are threatening to hold the United States, and by extension the world financial networks, hostage.

Their issue is that they don’t want the Affordable Care Act (also called Obamacare, invented by the rightwing Heritage Foundation, enacted by Congress, signed by the president and approved by the Supreme Court) to be any further entrenched. This autumn is the time that the health insurance exchanges open in all 50 states.

If you live in England or Canada or Sweden or someplace civilized like that, this must sound awfully weird — to threaten to push the country into default, and/or to defund and therefore shut down the government, because a small minority of legislators don’t like a law that provides health services for people. I wish I was making this up, then I could edit it and things would be different.

If that happens, we will certainly experience the Uranus-Pluto square full-on, in solar style. Note that the Sun, which is doing all the passing-through, in mundane astrology (the astrology of worldly affairs) represents the head of state. The fact that the head of state is going to have a wild ride for at least the first two weeks of October means that the whole government may be in turmoil.

Speaking of Oct. 1, that’s the day that Mercury enters what’s sometimes called shadow phase — the earliest measure of the Mercury retrograde effect beginning. The retrograde itself — the peak of the event, when Mercury appears to move in reverse longitude through the zodiac — begins on Oct. 21 and ends Nov. 10. The second shadow phase ends Nov. 27. This is definitely something to plan around. Follow the Planet Waves blog and Planet Waves FM and your member editions for ongoing details, which will be useful to keep up with.

This is actually pretty good timing for most purposes in the Western world, since we leave Mercury retrograde behind around Thanksgiving, and well before the end-of-the-year madness reaches its peak. However, as this happens, Venus is warming up to one of its relatively rare retrogrades (Venus is retrograde least of all the planets). That takes place Dec. 21 through Jan. 31 (not including shadow phases). I will come back to that one next month.

Right in the mix of Mercury retrograde, making things especially interesting, is a pair of eclipses. Both are impressive in their own right. All eclipses come with a sense of acceleration, concentrated experiences and the feeling that fate is in operation. Eclipses are points of no return — and these two occur in the mix of much other astrology.

As for the eclipses — the first is the Aries Full Moon, which is a penumbral lunar eclipse. The Moon will pass through the outermost edge of the Earth’s shadow on Friday, Oct. 18. One of the most interesting features of the eclipse is that the Moon will be conjunct a major new discovery, Eris (the planet that got Pluto ‘demoted’).

Then as the Moon is waning, the Sun ingresses Scorpio on Oct. 23. About 10 days later on Nov. 3, we experience the corresponding New Moon event — a part-annular, part-total eclipse that is one heck of an impressive chart.

The eclipse (a conjunction of the Moon and Sun) will be conjunct Mercury, the North Node and Saturn. That’s a lot of planets concentrated together, during what’s already one of the most profound times of year even when nothing special is going on.

It will be essential, in the midst of all of this, to keep your focus, to maintain emotional grounding, and to stay in balance — all of which will be easier said than done. When the astrology is acting up, a good astrologer can be helpful. Through this whole season, I plan to be working on my 2014 annual readings for all 12 signs and rising signs.

For the past few weeks I’ve been studying and casting charts for the next 12 months, and they are pretty special, even by contemporary standards. What’s interesting about the autumn of 2013 is that it closely resembles what will be happening all through 2014 — the peak year of the Uranus-Pluto square.

My annual will be called The Mars Effect. Having read this article, when I say that Mars will be passing through the Jupiter-Uranus-Pluto-Typhon configuration not once but three times, that will be meaningful — we are about to go on one heck of a ride. We are, as of this moment, embarking on what may be the most profound phase of the extended 2012 era; I would estimate this stretches from October of 2013 through August of 2014.

Confronted with this information, some astrologers will say hold on and some will say let go. I will say: stoke your vision, pay attention and look where you want to be.

Lovingly,

This week’s news briefs were written and researched by Amanda Painter, Susan Scheck, Carol van Strum, Anne Craig and your friendly neighborhood news editor, Eric Francis.

We are happy to offer once again one of our most popular products: the Planet Waves All-Access Pass for 2014. The All-Access Pass is for members who want access to everything we offer in a calendar year. In recent years our product line has grown considerably, and the response from our All-Access subscribers has been overwhelmingly positive. You can read about everything that’s included with an All-Access pass here. For those who can’t get enough Planet Waves astrology, it’s an unbeatable value. Plus, if you order now, we’ll include the rest of the readings that come out in 2013, and you’ll save $100.

After the Fake Filibuster, a Game of Chicken

The rightwing fringes of the Republican party have been moaning for the past couple of years thatcandidates like McCainand Romney, despite unstinting support of big business and blustering on aboutAmerican exceptionalism, simply weren’tconservative enough. The 2012 election cycle brought in a freshcrop of Tea Party-fancying congressional representatives, including thejunior senator from Texas, Ted Cruz.

If you recognize his name, that’s because he increased his visibility considerably this past week with a“filibuster” on the Senate floor lasting more than 21hours, claiming that his intention was to bravely fightto defund the Affordable Care Act, known to most as Obamacare.

That was the first step in endlessly awaited health care reform designed to make medical coverage moreaccessible to more people. It’s the one thing that Obama has accomplished, and it seems that no matterhow popular it is, Obama’s political enemies want to deny him a positive legacy.

As you may know, the federal government runs out of money in mid-October. To stay in business,it must pass what is called a “continuing resolution” (CR, in Beltway-talk), which extends the nonexistentbudget. The federal government no longer uses a budget; it sputters along from CR to CR. The next oneexpires Tuesday, Oct. 1.

Last week the House of Representatives passed a 45-day CR that includes a condition: at the insistence ofthe Republican majority, funding the government only if the Affordable Care Act is cut off from resources.In other words, the majority of our representatives are willing to shut down the government if Obamacareis not starved of resources. Forget the fact that it’s been approved by all three branches of government,including a conservative-leaning Supreme Court.

So the Republicans, who now resemble anarchists, are planning a kind of holdup: they say they won’tapprove a CR without also killing Obamacare. That in turn could force a government shutdown just as theSun squares Pluto, setting off the rest of the grand cross — just as Mercury gets ready to station retrograde.

Friday, the Senate is scheduled to take up the House version of the bill, which will fail in the Democrat-controlled Senate. That means the country will still be without a CR, and the money runs out around Oct.17. Most people are expecting pressure from the business community, meaning banks and financialmarkets, not the local tailor shop, to dissuade the Tea Partiers to allow the government to function. Butthat might not work.

Meanwhile, Republicans — eager for any influence they might have, and to do anything to make Obamalook bad — have trained their guns on the rapidly approaching debt ceiling deadline. That is the limit onmoney the government must borrow to pay for things already purchased (wars, etc.).

That issue must be resolved by Oct. 17, when the debt ceiling must either be raised — as has been donemore than 50 times in recent decades — or the U.S. government will be in default on its current financialobligations. Republicans are offering to avert this crisis provided that Democrats will agree to (among otherthings) approving the Keystone XL pipeline and delaying the implementation of Obamacare for a year.

In other words, the Republican position is: do it our way or we blow the place up. Default would have manyrepercussions, including messing with financial markets, banking, thousands of businesses and hundreds ofthousands of employees who depend on federal paychecks; not to mention the millions of people whodepend on the government being there.

Will the federal government shut down? At this point, it seems unlikely that Congress will manage to get itscollective self together and prevent that eventuality by midnight on Monday. Even if it does shut down,various Obamacare provisions will continue to go into effect.

One thing we can all count on is a bitter fight on the debt ceiling issue as we approach mid-October.

The glaringly obvious fact that emerges from the Cruz performance is that, rather than a good-faith effortto govern, the end game was all about either one guy getting attention, or one guy taking the fall for whata lot of people want to do but don’t want to stand up for.

Warren Revives Softer Draft Guidance for GMO Labeling

Senator Elizabeth Warren, a staunch consumer-protection advocate, is calling for the Food and Drug Administration to finalize a 12-year-old draft guidance in relation to the labeling of foods containing GMOs.

GMO labeling supporters are not entirely pleased with this, since the guidance is voluntary and not as tough as the mandatory national labeling requirements they seek.

The guidance calls for food manufacturers, should they choose to identify foods as containing GMOs, to use statements that explain how the food was modified through genetic engineering and avoid the phrase “GMO free” for foods that have not been modified.

“The term ‘GMO free’ may be misleading for most foods, because most foods do not contain organisms (seeds and foods like yogurt that contain microorganisms are exceptions),” the guidance explains. “It would likely be misleading to suggest that a food that ordinarily would not contain entire ‘organisms’ is ‘organism free.'”

However, 85% of corn and 93% of soy grown in the U.S. in 2013 has been genetically modified. These ingredients are added to many processed foods sold here — a leading reason for mandatory labeling.

Cross-contamination — GMO seeds finding their way into non-GMO corn and soy fields — is common, and therefore a wild card in any food product containing corn or soy. Mandatory labeling would eliminate at least some of the mystery in what we are eating.

Update: The Monsanto Protection Act will not be part of a bill to avoid the government shutdown, due to opposition by Senate Democrats Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), chair of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, as well as strong action against it by the public. Mikulski announced Tuesday evening that it will be stripped from the Senate version of the bill.

Russia to Prosecute Greenpeace Activists for Piracy

Russia’s top investigative agency, the Investigative Committee, said Tuesday it will prosecute Greenpeace activists on piracy charges for trying to climb onto an Arctic offshore drilling platform owned by the state-controlled gas company Gazprom. Their ship, the Arctic Sunrise, was seized last week by the Russian Coast Guard in Murmansk, a Russian Arctic port.

Piracy carries a potential prison sentence of up to 15 years and a fine of 500,000 rubles (about $15,500).

Two activists tried to climb onto the Prirazlomnaya platform last Thursday and others assisted from small inflatable boats. The Greenpeace protest was aimed at calling attention to the environmental risks of drilling for oil in Arctic waters.

Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said the activists posed a danger to operations on the oil platform. “Such activities not only infringe on the sovereignty of a state, but might pose a threat to the environmental security of the whole region.”

Greenpeace insisted that under international law Russia had no right to board its ship and has no grounds to charge its activists with piracy.

Russian president Vladimir Putin weighed in Wednesday at a forum on the Arctic, saying, “It is absolutely evident that they are, of course, not pirates. But formally they were trying to seize this platform … It is evident that those people violated international law.”

A spokesman for the Investigative Committee said the charges might be changed if new evidence emerges.

Hunger Strikes: puss* Riot, Guantanamo

Nadia Tolokonnikova, one of two incarcerated members of Russian feminist punk group puss* Riot, has begun a hunger strike in protest of “slavery-like conditions” in a Mordovian penal colony. She is serving a two-year sentence for protesting Russian president Vladimir Putin with her band, who staged a “punk prayer” inside a Moscow cathedral on February 21, 2012.

Tolokonnikova wrote an open letter, published in The Guardian UK, describing how inmates are in charge of giving others beatings and depriving them of rights, under the approval of prison officials; work sewing shifts as long as 17 hours; and endure inconceivable filth in an atmosphere of antagonism, terror and despair.

“A threatening, anxious atmosphere pervades the work zone. Eternally sleep-deprived, overwhelmed by the endless race to fulfill inhumanly large quotas, prisoners are always on the verge of breaking down, screaming at each other, fighting over the smallest things. Just recently, a young woman got stabbed in the head with a pair of scissors because she didn’t turn in a pair of pants on time,” she writes.

According to her husband, Peter Verzilov, Tolokonnikova has also faced death threats in retaliation for a complaint she sent through her lawyer.

In May the other jailed member of puss* Riot, Maria Alyokhina, went on hunger strike for 11 days to protest prison conditions; allegedly many of her demands were met. A Mordovia prison system spokesman has denied Tolokonnikova’s allegations.

Meanwhile in Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. military says it will stop reporting the number of prisoners on hunger strike when the official tally of striking prisoners has dropped below 19. The strike against indefinite detention began in February, with 106 out of the 166 prisoners participating at its peak, prompting Pres. Obama to address his failure to close the prison as promised. At this time, 18 prisoners are listed for force-feeding through inhumane nasal tubes.

Ego, Sexual Expectations and Viagra: More is Not Merrier

For centuries, human beings have done foolish things to boost their sex appeal, sex drive and sexual ability — often carrying (or thinking they must meet) unrealistically high expectations. Once in a while, the pursuit of sexual prowess has tragic consequences, as two men recently demonstrated with their misuse of Viagra. [Read earlier Planet Waves coverage of Viagra here.]

According to The Daily Mail, which cites the Columbia Reports website, a 65-year-old Colombian man recently underwent the amputation of his penis after intentionally overdosing on Viagra in an attempt to impress his new girlfriend.

The man, from Gigante, Colombia (no joke), suffered an erection for several days before being forced to seek medical help (Viagra’s label advises seeking medical help for any erection lasting more than four hours). At that point, his penis was showing signs of gangrene; doctors chose to amputate to prevent its spread to other parts of his body.

He is now recovering physically (no word on his ego). A 25-year-old in Yemen was not so lucky last week.

The young man sought to impress his new bride by taking five Viagra pills at once on his wedding day. Upon his arrival home after the ceremony, he collapsed and died despite doctors’ attempts to revive him at a hospital.

By no means is this the first case of a man suffering heart attack or arrhythmia while using Viagra; the same effect the drug has on the nerve activity of the penis can also increase sympathetic nerve activity, which makes blood vessels constrict. And there are numerous other potential side effects.

That the death occurred in a man so young highlights a disturbing trend: young men taking erectile dysfunction drugs when they are not suffering from ED. In fact, one 2012 study found that young men using ED drugs ‘recreationally’ may actually be more likely to develop the condition, by creating a psychological dependence on them.

Pfizer, the maker of Viagra, warns quite specifically that combining Viagra with certain other medications, or using it in the presence of certain health conditions, can be dangerous. Pfizer’s website and labeling also advise that a man’s doctor may prescribe a lower dose if he is over 65.

But do the warnings need to be stronger? Even if they were, is it enough to sway a man who’s so desperate to be ‘enough’ for a woman in today’s world of non-stop sex in the media and Internet p*rn? People tend to think that ‘if a little is good, more must be better’ about everything from Tylenol to chocolate cake. Will we ever learn?

We Can Save the USPS — If We Want To

The Carper-Coburn bill (S. 1486), which threatens the viability of the U.S. Postal Service by ending Saturday delivery and door-to-door delivery, plus laying off more than 100,000 workers over several years, has been the subject of congressional hearings this week. It has also inspired legislation meant to counter the brick-by-brick dismantling of the USPS by reimagining how the struggling organization could recapitalize itself through diversifying its services.

Representative Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) and Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) have brought The Postal Service Modernization Bills, a pair of companion bills, to their respective wings of Congress.

“Needs that the post office might diversify into include (1) funding the rebuilding of our crumbling national infrastructure; (2) servicing the massive market of the “unbanked” and “underbanked” who lack access to basic banking services; and (3) providing a safe place to save our money, in the face of Wall Street’s new ‘bail in’ policies for confiscating depositor funds,” writes Ellen Brown, president of the Public Banking Institute, in a Truthout article.

“All these needs could be met at a stroke by some simple legislation authorizing the post office to revive the banking services it efficiently performed in the past.”

Bipartisan support for founding a national infrastructure bank (NIB) over the last six years keeps meeting opposition to using tax money for such a thing (while never-ending wars get continual funding). But Frederic V. Rolando, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, asks:

“[W]hat if we set up the NIB without using taxpayer funds? What if we allowed Americans to open savings accounts in the nation’s post offices and directed those funds into national infrastructure bonds that would earn interest for depositors and fund job-creating projects to replace and modernize our crumbling infrastructure?

“A post office bank … would not offer commercial loans or mortgages. But it could serve the unbanked and fund infrastructure projects selected by a non-partisan NIB.”

The idea has precedent: currently 1 billion people use the postal sector for savings and deposit accounts worldwide. With about one in four U.S. households counting as “unbanked” or “underbanked,” an NIB could serve as a true alternative to such extortionist options as prepaid debit cards, check cashing services and payday loans that keep people locked into poverty.

It’s a Dangerous Job but Somebody Has to Do it Well

New York Times staff photographer Tyler Hicks hadn’t planned on working last Saturday morning, Sept. 21. He was picking up some framed wedding photos in a shopping center when the neighboring Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya, exploded into screams and shouts and gunfire.

You may know his name because he and three colleagues were held captive for six days by pro-Qaddafi fighters during the Libyan revolution.

Hicks ran toward the scene as everyone else was running away, and entered the mall through a service entrance with Kenyan security forces, photographing chaos with the little camera he had handy until his bride, fellow photojournalist Nichole Sobecki, got there with his Kevlar and pro gear.

By coincidence, then, the world ended up witha view of the attack’s early hoursthrough the lens of a Pulitzer Prize winner. Long before the nearly five-day siege was over, Somali-based hard-liners Al Shabaab (“the youth” in Arabic)claimed credit. In a message released Wednesday, Al Shabaab blamed Kenya’s incursion into Somali and “Western states that supported the Kenyan invasion and are spilling the blood of innocent Muslims in order to pave the way for their mineral companies” for its attack.

The attack was carefully planned — Al Shabaab apparently rented a storefront within Westgate from which to plan and stage its bloodbath. Thisupended the conventional wisdomthat AMISOM, made up of several African nations including Kenya and with substantial Western backing, was close to a decisive victory in the bloody Somalian conflict taking place against a backdrop of devastating famine.

Meanwhile, Kenyan military security forces were woefully unprepared for such an event, which is why it took days to bring under control. Counterterrorism planners said that this particular mall was such an obvious target, it was recently used for terrorism response training exercises.

Al-Shabaab, which grew from a relatively small offshoot of a formerly governing coalition to claim the al Qaeda brand, is reportedly unpopular within Somalia. The hardline political Islamists have plenty of innocent Muslim blood on their own hands. Reports of the mall attack demonstrate an effort to spin the PR fallout in their favor by checking to see if victims were Muslim before shooting them.

Kenya has the largestSomali refugeepopulation in the world. Over half the Kenyan population survives on less than a dollar a day, and youth unemployment is over 75%, creating fertile ground forAl-Shabaab recruiterswho work through Saudi-backed Islamic youth centers and offer $500 a month.

Expatriate Somalis living in the United States reject the idea that Al-Shabaab would have any great success recruiting among American youth, despite reports they’ve made it all the way to Minneapolis. Still being sorted out are reports that there were several nationalities among the mostly young attackers; Interpol has issued anarrest warrant for Samantha Lethwaite, the widow of a man who was killed participating in a London terror attack several years ago.

As of Thursday, 67 civilians from a dozen different countries and five militants are confirmed dead, including children as young as five; 61 people are still unaccounted for as forensic teams from several nations sift the rubble. Eleven militants are in custody. Also on Thursday,fighting ramped up along the Somalian/Kenyan border.

BlackBerry Sells Out, Goes Private, Stays In Business

It’s been a rough couple of years for RIM, makers of the iconic BlackBerry. At least it was rough before this week’s announcement that the company — called BlackBerry, after it’s smartphone product for the past year or so — would accept a $4.7 billion buyout. That offer came from Fairfax Financial Holdings, a Canadian consortium headed by Prem Watsa. The $9 a share proposition came Monday afternoon, following an announcement last Friday of layoffs and poor earnings.

Watsa was a BlackBerry board member until August, when the company announced it was for sale and the “Canadian Warren Buffett” stepped aside to avoid conflict of interest. Fairfax already holds about a tenth of BlackBerry stock, and the deal would make the formerly public company private.

Rumors of a buyouthad been swirling around the company since at least 2011, when RIM stock dropped by 80%. In the past year, government agencies including the Department of Defense, the FBI, and the ICE all announced that they were opening up their portable IT bidding — formerly an exclusively BlackBerry niche — to rival companies like Apple and Samsung.

When the Defense Department announcement came last October, BlackBerry’s vice president for government solutionswhistled a happy tune to CNET, claiming confidence that BlackBerry would continue dominating the business and government sectors. The device that revolutionized the communications world back around the turn of the century still has diehard fans, who gather on adedicated forumto talk “Crackberries.” Pres. Obama famously carries one. But even Obama for America, his campaign organization, spent a pile of money on Apple devices for its workforce.

Watsa has said that he believes in the BlackBerry and that taking the company private will allow for retrenchment and healing. On the Crackberry board, they’re not a happy group. Many claim that when it comes to sheer solid functionality, nothing beats a BlackBerry. But the company that’s long marketed its devices as tools, not toys, seems unlikely to survive without some re-visioning going down. Even the Navy wants apps these days.

Kaleidolapse moment frozen in time: if you’ve been to Barcelona, do you recognize that tower?

Turning the World Inside Out: Barcelona Kaleidolapse

A walk around Barcelona would be enough eye candy for most of us, but now there’s this: a Kaleidolapse of the city, turning church spires, trees, people and streets into a wild moving mandala.

Kaleidolapse is a visual technique that applies a kaleidoscopic effect to different shots taken with time lapse photography. The multiple moving images are symmetrically multiplied, giving them an abstract look.

The technique was developed by MyLapse, a Barcelona-based production company specializing in time-lapse photography. The creative team set a single mandatory criterion: “At some point in every shot anyone should be able to identify the site of Barcelona that was filmed.” If you need some help with that, click here for a list.

Sean Lennon and Charlotte Kemp Muhl — Ghost of a Sabre Tooth Tiger.

Equinox, New Moon and Sean Lennon

In this week’s edition of Planet Waves FM I cover the Libra Equinox, the Libra New Moon and a Libra rock star — Sean Lennon — and his Leo collaborator, Charlotte Kemp Muhl. I cover the approach of the Sun to the Jupiter-Uranus-Pluto-Typhon alignment on the cardinal cross — something that heats up for real over the weekend. My in-studio guest is Mike Amari, one of the truly bright minds behind attracting talent to BSP. (Read my coverage of BSP on Planet Waves here.) Meanwhile, Sean is playing this week at Backstage Studio Productions here in Kingston, NY. His performance group is called Ghost of a Sabre Tooth Tiger. Planet Waves FM is welcoming him to the neighborhood with an astrological tribute.

Your Monthly Horoscopes — and our Publishing Schedule Notes

The extended monthly horoscopes for October are published below in this issue. Inner Space for October was published Friday, Sept. 20. We published the Moonshine horoscopes for the Pisces Full Moon Tuesday, Sept. 16. Moonshine for the Libra New Moon will publish Tuesday, Oct. 1. Please note, we normally publish the extended monthly horoscopes on the first Friday after the Sun has entered a new sign; Inner Space usually publishes the following Tuesday but for now it’s substituting for one Friday horoscope a month.

Aries (March 20-April 19) — Others will have little choice but to deal with the fact that you cannot be anyone but yourself. Now, from one point of view, is it really possible ever to be anyone but yourself? Yet we all know how much faking so many people do. You’ve even done a little yourself every rare oncein a while. You can count on opening your mouth and saying exactly what comes to mind, and trusting that the results will sort themselves out. I suggest you notice what you say to whom. Rather than being far flung and out of control, you’re being more precise than you may think. It just may take you some time to have respect for your own point of view, especially if you manage to send out some ripples or have a few objections sent your way. Pay attention to who says what; notice who is turned on by your outbursts of authenticity. The one thing that nobody can complain about is that you’re getting a lot done. I suggest you engage that fully, and focus an agenda of everything you want to get done for the rest of the year (assuming you’re on such a schedule) and set about doing it sooner rather than later. Get a solid start on every project; get your research and your facts together; make progress while there’s progress to be made.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — You could set free an enormous amount of passion, of creativity, of karma — perhaps all three. This is less likely to happen following a conscious plan on your part, but is more likely to follow the path of one thing leads to another. Taurus is often described as a reserved sign, and on the surface it may seem to be that way. Yet right below your exterior is an ocean of energy; you know it and so does everyone around you. In some ways it’s amazing that you manage to keep yourself contained — though for the next few weeks, I don’t suggest you try too hard. Rather, do what you can to sense where you’re experiencing a buildup of energy. Vital force is vital force, though it takes a number of forms, and can be directed many different ways. You might think you’re experiencing anger when you’re really feeling the drive to connect. You might think you’re experiencing fear when you’re experiencing desire. If you can pay attention to the content of your feelings below the form they seem to be taking, it’ll be easier for you to use your energy productively and avoid a mishap — such as directing your emotions in a direction that might not be appropriate. You still have the power of choice, and with it the ability to access wisdom — which will become stronger the more you use it.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Maintain your boundaries, especially at work. You may not be able to mind your own business but it will be helpful if you give the impression that you’re doing so. Rather than asking questions, listen to what people say. You’re likely to find that people voluntarily tell you everything you need to know. All you’ll have to do is assemble the pieces, though be aware that on any matter of real significance, this could take until the second week of November. That’s when the forthcoming Mercury retrograde ends. Mercury, as the planet associated with Gemini, has personal relevance to you. Apart from the usual de rigueur stuff about making commitments or major purchases, the movements of Mercury are closely related to information coming to the surface of consciousness. Because this Mercury retrograde is in Scorpio, that relates to what is concealed below the surface. The retrograde is about going deeper, though there will be bursts of revelation both around the 21st of this month and the 11th of next month. I suggest, therefore, that you not finalize decisions, plans or even opinions about pending matters until you’re fully informed. What is brewing looks important enough to take seriously. This astrology could represent an opportunity, the solution to a problem, or an insight about a health matter. Most notably, it represents the emergence of a currently concealed option you will be happy to have available.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Take advantage of unusual developments in your professional life to stake out new territory. Your chart has been pointing you in the direction of new horizons for a long time. By that I don’t mean a change of career but rather the exploration of your talent. I also mean establishing yourself on a new level as a respected member of your profession, and one known and valued for what you do. This is a sensitive phase, and rather than being about guaranteed achievement, it’s a time to preserve what you’ve gained, build on your achievements, and notice the specific opportunities that are available to establish yourself. You may notice some contrast between what you’re capable of and what others are capable of — which is not an invitation to be competitive. Rather, you’re at a phase of your work where teaching and learning are emphasized strongly. Stabilize yourself and build your confidence by both working with a mentor and taking one or two people under your wing. The process of developing your own talent will be greatly enhanced by engaging with the skills, ideals and approach to life that others use. Your professional success depends less on your standing outthan it does on making yourself an integral part of what you do — what you might think of as your inner reputation as opposed to your outer one. As you’ll see, the two are related.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — You may think it would be wonderful if you could resolve that tension between dreaming big and wanting a perfect sense of security about the future. At the moment there is plenty of it — the bigger your vision, the less ‘safe’ and stable you may feel. Yet much as an electrical battery depends on those two polarities holding a charge, you are depending on this tension. In physics it’s called potential difference — with voltage. I suggest you work with the seeming contradiction between the way things are and the way things could be; between having your life be good enough and taking a risk to create something better. Much of this is in the realm of developing ideas that may ‘threaten’ your old ideas, or the mental patterns of the people around you. This, too, will present you with a form of tension that you can work with as a source of energy. At the same time, you seem to have no shortage of creativity and drive to move your ideas and plans forward. Here is the thing I would caution about: When you shake things up, that can come back to you as self-doubt, and in a weird way, as guilt. I suggest you proceed with the feeling that you’re entitled to express yourself as you are called to do, and to work with the formula “improvement is a form of necessary change.”

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — Treat joint finances and ‘permanent’ commitments with more care than usual. I don’t mean hesitancy — I mean scrutiny. Inaccuracies that slip into the mix, whether intentional (deception) or seemingly unintentional (overlooking details) or careless (skipping over due diligence) will cause problems in the future, so there is an added necessity to proceed with impeccability. With Mars soon to be in your sign that would not normally be an issue, though an opposition to Neptune is saying that your mantra needs to be ‘reality check’. Check the facts, investigate your doubts; if everything seems perfect, get another opinion; if you find a problem, solve the problem and then find two others to fix. The heart of the matter, however, is how you handle negotiations with close partners. This is especially true if you don’t know they’re negotiations. However any time there is an agreement on the table, especially if it involves money, pause, remember that you’re actually in a negotiation-commitment process, and then invoke your ‘reality check’ mantra. You need to take your time discerning the motives of the people around you. Even if your intuition gives you good information, make sure that you back it up with evidence collected from observation over time. When you’re dealing with Neptune, which you are at this time in your life, taking careful, dated notes is one of the most useful ways to stay awake.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — An eclipse in your opposite sign Aries will give you a new perspective on a relationship. It’s like a veil will be pulled back allowing you to gaze into the unknown. The underlying reality is different than the one you can see under normal circ*mstances. You have experienced plenty the past couple of years that you don’t fully understand, spread throughout a diversity of situations. They all have something in common, and this is what I suggest you look for when you have those momentary opportunities to peer beyond the facade of existence. What you learn will help you sort out the issue of what you seem to want versus what you seem to get. You will feel better taking even small steps in this direction; I can offer you a clue — what you (really) want is unlikely to be thestandard scenario of a comedy ending in suburban marriage. You have something edgier in mind; something more creative; something with more potential. Along the way, I suggest you evaluate your experiences not on whether they add up to your fantasy but rather how you feel about yourself. Each experienceyouhave with another person has a way of influencing your inner relationship. This has nothing to do with the storyboard of expectations — it’s all about the real chemistry that you share with others, which in turn shapes your life and your experience of living.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Consider any and every change you’ve avoided making the past few years. Consider everything that’s stuck in your life, the places you experience boredom, and the ways you want to break free. Make some notes on all the promises youmade withyourself about what you would be doing by the time you reached your current age. Astrological influences are gathering that may incline you to catch up on everything, all at once. I don’t recommend that as a method. Saturn is still in your sign; as much as that is reputed by astrologers to represent something that will not move, in fact Saturn never stops moving, and is your most dependable longterm influence when it comes to making real changes. Saturn’s presence is about focusing your energy and directing your passion in a way that’s directly integrated with that elusive thing known as logic. If you set out to accomplish a longterm goal, you need to be willing to take the necessary actions on the days that you don’t feel like doing it; on the days when that particular goal is not high on your priorities. This is a form of discipline that’s not inherent in your emotionally dominated sign — though I suspect it’s a personal goal for you to be able to focus on this. You now have an incentive. I’ll remind you in a month, but please don’t forget.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — You seem to be pursuing some recognition or success, which you’re associating with money. Is this a valid connection? What if you considered the participation-visibility aspect of your work as one idea, and the business success as another? I know that the two are often conflated — for example, fame (a form of participation, based on acclaim) is associated with fortune (financial success). They’re not the same thing, on any level. Acknowledgement for what you do, and the opportunities that open up, is its own critter. Along with this you may include the integrity you put into your work, the message, and the ways in which you grow as a result of expressing yourself. Success in business is not assured from any of this, nor is it a matter of luck. It’s a matter of careful planning, conscious decision-making, a learning process and the careful choice of partners. Looked at this way, it’s clear why scrambling up these two kinds of success ladders doesn’t work so well. No matter how well-known a person is, no matter how well respected, that does not ensure or even hint at cleverness when it comes to handling money and business arrangements. And, sadly, skill with money is often associated with lack of integrity — that is not inherently true. Take these two sides of the equation separately and you will make a lot more progress — of the kind known as maturity.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — It will be a good idea to step back from the festivities, the fuss and the fireworks that develop later in the month and into early November. You’re focused on certain specific tasks right now, and you know you’re operating within the constraints of time and resources. Your astrology suggests you have enough of both, but not if you squander them on a drama that, in the end, you will discover had nothing to do with you. There are many ways to use the substantial astrology that’s rapidly approaching — astrology that will grant you visibility, the potential to meet new friends, and most of all, that will focus your sense of purpose. Therefore, start with purpose, which is similar to intent, and then rather brutally, evaluate every situation on whether you think it will advance your cause or work against it. As the next few weeks develop, this will be especially true of social situations, in which I would include parties, partying, going out and mindless diversion on the Internet. Alternately, the environment you’re in is very well suited for establishing your reputation based on real accomplishments, developing working relationships with people and carving out your special niche in the culture. Some of this is subject to serendipity and synchronicity; none of it is casual or haphazard. The temptation to be popular is more likely to work against you than it is to help. Therefore, keep your focus.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — You may be thinking: is this all some kind of test of character, or of my integrity? I don’t know if it’s a test, but you may be experiencing the consequences aspect of life more than you’re experiencing its promise or potential. They are all related. All consequences are results, and what they are results of is, precisely, some form of potential. This works for ‘good’ things and for ‘bad’ things. The law of cause and effect is in action all the time. The difference between a sleeping person and an awake one is consciously using causes (motives, intent, decision) to get an effect (a result of some kind). This implies becoming conscious of all the superstition that is used as a substitute for good, old-fashioned karma. You are moving into a time of increased power of manifestation — what some astrologers might call success, but I think it’s edgier than that. Your choices will get results, though those results are the product of something. You are also living with the effects of what you have created — and the astrology I’m describing will grant you extra power to make adjustments to what currently exists. This will be especially true if you develop your understanding of how things got to be the way they are. And once you arrive at that understanding, consider it a rough draft and go deeper. Cause and effect are never separate, which is an idea that could save the world.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — You would be amazed, if you could see the truth, the extent to which your choices today are based on beliefs that aremany years or many generations old — and which are no longer applicable to the world in which we live. Some of these may masquerade as traditions, respect for the way things are done, morals, ethics and ‘fundamental values’. I suggest you put the lot of it up for evaluation. It’s impossible to question a belief unless you know you have it, so the first step is knowing what it is you think is true. Then take the next step and evaluate why you think it’s true. Question every assumption until it’s a habit, which may lead you to reject assuming anything at all. The very most important thing you can question is anything — anything and everything — taught to you by your parents. Questioning it does not make it, or them, or you, wrong — rather, it’s that once you start clearing the clutter, you will discover windows and doors, and the light and fresh air they allow into your awareness is known as a vision. I don’t mean this as a metaphor, but rather as a direct idea: what has the strongest potential is what you can actually see, and visualize, down to the details. Visualizations might ‘come to you’ or you might construct them like a draftsman makes a drawing. Either way or both — have at it.

Wondering about how astrology is influencing your life now? Eric has prepared a written and recorded reading for you that tells the story. You cangetall 12 signs of LISTEN, your 2013 reading, for thespecial reduced price of only $29.95.LISTEN gives you a detailed reading, available immediately, covering work, relationships, personal growth and creativity.

Dear Friend and Reader:

Today’s edition is a recap of the total solar eclipse that takes place today, Tuesday, Nov. 13, at 5:09 pm EST. It is the first solar eclipse in Scorpio since 1995.

I’ve condensed some of the key ideas in a few different articles for this letter. [Here is an article that covers the brass tacks of the astrology in summary form.] One reminder I would offer is to use this energy to visualize the life you want; to consider the changes you want to make; and to summon yourself into harmony with the flow of life, which — combined with your clear intentions — is what will get you there.

Before I get into the personal attributes of this event, notice what’s going on in the collective mind — a sex scandal involving someone who was the head of the CIA, a shirtless FBI agent, and as of this morning, John Allen, the top NATO commander in Afghanistan.

Only a rare total solar eclipse in Scorpio could come with this line from an Associated Press article, referencing the comments of a senior defense official — “He would not say whether they involved sexual matters or whether they are thought to include unauthorized disclosures of classified information.” If you’re an astrology student, you file this whole event under “Introduction to Scorpio.” But of course there is more.

This eclipse is conjunct an asteroid called Tantalus. It’s opposite one called Arachne (in Taurus). And it’s square a centaur planet called Nessus (in Aquarius). Each of these helps focus the theme of this event.
[Note to Scorpio readers, you can gain access to your 2012 birthday reading at this link.]

The last time the lunar nodes (which hint where eclipses will be) passed through Taurus and Scorpio was in 2003-2004. However, as occasionally happens, the cosmos served up a series of lunar eclipses in Scorpio, but no solar eclipses.

Seventeen years is a long time for there to be no solar eclipses in a sign — especially one as close to the core of human experience and consciousness as is Scorpio.

And now at long last we’re about to have one, which is sure to flush some of that rich silt up from the bottom of the river and out onto the flood plain, as well as fear, shadow material and anything else we may be hiding. When there are no solar eclipses in a sign for a long time, the feeling can be like pent-up energy behind a dam, which suddenly bursts when the eclipse happens.

With Scorpio, as mentioned above, this will include deeply personal material related to sex, death and the exchange of resources, including potentially the zones where all these things blend into one.

The eclipse is conjunct a point called Tantalus, an asteroid named for the Greek mythological figure. This is a complex myth, though the presence of this point in Scorpio essentially says to be conscious of anything that has a sexual tease. Tantalus is the source of the word tantalize, and the myth is a story of punishment through deprivation.

Nearly everything involving sex and sexuality comes with a tease, though often not the pleasant kind. Potential partners and existing ones can deprive one another of sex for a diversity of reasons. Many people are attracted to what they cannot have. Others concentrate power by using sex as a lure and then depriving someone of it. Often it takes two to play this game.

One way it manifests is in issues around availability. This might be a tendency to play with approach-avoid, which is usually a sign of guilt or shame. I suggest you monitor all the ways you make yourself unavailable and see if you notice a pattern, and can discern why you’re doing it. Are you being defensive? Are you afraid to be vulnerable? Are you trying to get power over someone, or to control yourself?

Opposite the eclipse is a point called Arachne, also an asteroid. Arachne represents a conspiratorial view of life, as well as the stories we tell one another, and the ones we accept. Arachne here is suggesting to be aware of the role of gossip (scandal is a form of sexual repression), and to be mindful of your fear of conspiracies. There is also a reminder here that we are all connected, something that humans live with every day and just as often deny.

Finally, Nessus is in the aspect pattern, square the eclipse. Nessus is a centaur planet, somewhat like Chiron in that its orientation is healing. However, Nessus is about trust, betrayal and the karma associated with these things. Nessus is in Aquarius, the sign of ‘what others think’, though it’s square the eclipse — this is about what you think others think. This could also represent what you take on from society, including the immediate society of your circle of friends, and how you let this shape you. Groups of very nice people can hold people to sometimes vicious, hypocritical standards. Yet for that to work you would need to cooperate, and one way to do that is by taking on the judgments of others, or their perceived judgments.

To end the tease, say yes when you mean yes and no when you mean no. The moment you find yourself saying something other than what you feel, or denying yourself or someone else against your desires, that’s a moment to let go. Sex is not an ulterior purpose, a bargaining chip or a reward. It’s a natural experience of life, and we would be a lot happier for treating it that way.

The eclipse seems to illustrate the release of aggressive instincts into something more constructively passionate. There is also the message not to take things so personally. We see this in Mars, the ruler of Scorpio (and thus of the eclipse) in Sagittarius — placed on the Galactic Core. Mars is a personal planet; the Galactic Core offers a wide perspective, even on a global or cosmic level. The GC operates in the background of everything.

One message here is that desire is cosmic in nature. It’s not a moral issue any more than breathing is, and like breath, it represents the forward movement of existence. What contacts the Galactic Core can have an exotic feeling, even seeming to be unattainable, impossible to describe or even feel in the usual sense. When you combine this with Mars, the result can be cosmic desire that’s yearning for expression in a human, physical and emotional way.

Meanwhile, Mercury is also in Sagittarius, in an especially interesting position: it’s square both Neptune and a hypothetical point called Transpluto. This is a message to question one specific lie: that your existence is wrong. This is a lie propagated by religion, for example in the form of ‘original sin’. Going back further into Jewish tradition, we have the idea of an omniscient God who is concerned with every last detail of what we do; the Jews thus invented guilt. If you’re Muslim, you would get the idea that your existence is wrong if you’re female (and there are plenty of messages coming through Judaism and Christianity to the same effect).

The alignment of retrograde Mercury, Neptune and Transpluto is an invitation to question this assault on nature in general and on your own nature. To do so, you will need to stay awake, stay with your feelings and know that self-criticism is the problem and not the solution. When in doubt, open up to yourself first and then to others.

The Moon ingressed Scorpio at 6:10 am EST Monday, where it picked up on Neptune and Chiron in Pisces and made a conjunction to Saturn in Scorpio. This series of aspects has a clairvoyant feeling; just make sure that if you have your remote sensors on, you are willing to deal with any information you pick up. On the other side, the mix of Neptune, Chiron and Saturn can have the feeling of giving tangible form to your imagination. This is the visioning factor, the best way to make changes in a creative way. Get it going.

Lovingly,

Planet Waves FM :: About Today’s Eclipse

Here is the regular edition of Planet Waves FM. I talk about eclipses in general, then address the fact of the first solar eclipse in Scorpio since 1995, and then the New Moon/eclipse chart. Toward the end of the program, I talk about what a scandal really is.

The lead article above provides a thorough written description of today’s eclipse. If you’d like to join a conversation about the themes of this eclipse, please visit the version of the article on the Planet Waves blog. I also have a short piece on the astrology of November that is worth reading.

I mention two books in today’s edition — Eros Denied by Wayland Young, and Games People Play by Eric Berne. These are books to read if you’re interested in going from unfree to potentially free.

Planet Waves FM :: Blue Studio Series (sex conversations)

Welcome to the first edition of the Blue Studio Series — an ongoing series of conversations about sex with Planet Waves readers. These are not really interviews; they are an exchange of ideas, in an informal, free-form format. Nora is a 56-year-old mom and grandmother, who has discovered her freedom and is now exploring erotic adventures. This discussion is about one hour. In this series, we’ll be hearing from people — so far, women — of a diversity of ages and sexual orientations.

If you have written to me about participating but have not heard back, please email me again at dreams@planetwaves.net with a clear subject header. In the frenzy of last week’s election edition, I may have lost track of a few contacts. Please let us know how you like the series, and you may direct any questions for Nora in the comments area; she will be reading, and will reply. — efc

Dear Friend and Reader:

The presidential election of 2012 has ended like waking up from a bad dream. For many it was more like a nightmare. For the past 18 months, we have endured a parade of fools served up by the Republican party, a pageant that rivaled the best efforts of The Onion or Saturday Night Live to make fun of it.

Mercury stationing retrograde on Election Day did not knock the election down like 10-pins, but it threatened to. Between voter suppression efforts, rigged voting machines, and a vicious campaign where nothing was too personal to be out of bounds, we had our hands full. Add Hurricane Sandy, Koch brothers mischief and Karl Rove with $300 million to spend, I consider us all very fortunate.

That said, Mercury is always Mercury, and we need to remain vigilant for the ways this unprecedented astrological event can manifest, toward the end of the retrograde later this month and beyond. The United States is not on solid ground, spiritually or financially. The fiscal cliff showdown looms ahead, as does the next battle over the debt ceiling. The losers may have conceded the election as a kind of technicality, though the denial and rhetoric have not tamped down. There is no evidence that this was a self-reflective moment for those who did not get elected.

And we met a lot of losers. In the ‘truth comes out’ theme of a Mercury station, we also peered into the dark heart of so-called conservatism. Beneath the absurdity of Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan coming out of a video game, Rick Perry forgetting which federal agencies he would shut down (Ron Paul helped him remember) and Michele Bachmann’s flamboyant husband’s ‘psychology’ clinic where you can go (or take your kid, or your husband) to be cured of being gay, there was a disgusting ooze seeping out of the crevices.

We got a whiff of the obvious racism behind many of the critiques of Obama. Another was a toxic mix of fundamentalist Christianity mixed with political ambition, aggression and misogyny, the result of a movement that’s been on the rise since the early 1980s. This was the ‘new conservatism’ that turned churches into political clubhouses, and raised social issues (the government getting in your pants) to the top level of priorities. Appealing to those who are wounded, in denial and repressed, the non-issue of gayness and a perverse interest in women’s bodies took precedence over the most critical affairs of the nation.

In retrospect, the parade of egos we have witnessed since the summer of 2011 may have been designed as a distraction, to deflect attention from real issues, of which there are many: global warming, GMOs infesting the biosphere, banksters still running Wall Street, fracking and many more. Clearly this campaign against women was not designed to raise the vibration of society. In the end it may have had that effect, though at a high cost.

Imagine that you’re the survivor of a sexual attack or incest. You also follow the news, and night after night you’re hearing about candidates for the highest offices in the land making comments about “legitimate rape,” the rapist’s impregnation of a woman being a gift from “god,” how “the female body has ways to shut that whole thing down,” and how having a child out of wedlock is similar to rape — all of this being used to collect votes and campaign contributions.

Rape is about power and rage; anyone to whom it’s happened knows that. Listening to these psychologically damaged, emotionally violent delusional people vie for unlimited power would be pretty creepy. They’re backed by billions of dollars, being taken seriously by some TV newscasters and getting actual public support no matter how disgusting their ideas.

Personally I cannot imagine the pain that would flush through my body and emotions if I were a survivor of sexual trauma and heard any of these gasbags vent their opinions on women and what happens to them, thanks or no thanks to “god.” I would be questioning not just why this was happening, but what planet I was on and whether I wanted to be here if these people continued to take power.

Maybe you’re someone whose life was saved by an abortion, or who made a difficult and deeply painful decision to terminate a pregnancy that would not have been correct for you. You know how critical it was that you made this choice on your own, and now you’re hearing a bunch of people say that this should not have been your right, and it shouldn’t be your daughter’s prerogative either.

There is no secular, scientific, legal, medical or logical argument against early-term abortion. There are only religious and emotional arguments, and what we’ve been listening to was both: people motivated by religion intending to stir up the emotions of vulnerable people, and get them to give up their rights. And these are the arguments of hypocrites. Nothing would stop a wealthy person or a politician from seeking an abortion if someone in their family needed one. And there is no pro-life argument that cannot be applied to the death penalty, but when ever is it?

This mob has been talking about reversing more than just Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision affirming that women have the right to make decisions about their own bodies. That’s been going on for a while; more recently, Griswold v. Connecticut, the 1965 decision blocking states from making birth control illegal, has come up as an issue. Most people don’t even know that this decision exists; they take for granted that reproductive health services are legal and available. Why exactly wouldn’t they be?

Most people don’t know that Mitt Romney personally said he believed Griswold was decided wrongly, and he didn’t mean the subtle legal reasoning — he meant the result of the decision, which makes family planning a constitutionally protected right. Both of these decisions are founded on the right to privacy, which I guess according to this theory is something reserved for men.

There were nine candidates who comprised what MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow called the “creepy rape and abortion comments caucus,” and all of them lost their election bids Tuesday, including Paul Ryan, who was running for vice president. [Her segment on this issue from Wednesday night’s program is worth watching.] If we include Mitt Romney for his comments about the ‘personhood amendment’ and reversing Griswold, that makes an even 10.

It’s reassuring that many Democrats, some Republicans and some in the press called them out on this. It also became clear that banning abortion meant criminalizing abortion and miscarriage, which after all might be an illegal abortion. The word got out and it’s gratifying that there was a decisive political response.

Yet this whole disgusting scenario, whether a red herring or not, was too close for comfort. The viewpoints that make it possible still exist, and are likely to persist in both state and federal politics — and in communities across the United States. It is reassuring, with respect to this one issue, that Barack Obama will appoint the two or three Supreme Court vacancies that are likely to occur during his presidency, and that a Senate with a Democratic majority will be there to approve those nominees.

There are still likely to be confirmation battles, as there are a good few anti-choice Democrats who might caucus with the Republicans on this issue. At least it’s not a done deal. For now we’ve been able to dodge this blatant attack on women, on civility and on common sense.

Many other good things happened on Tuesday. A years-long voter suppression campaign failed. More young people voted in 2012 than they did in 2008. Citizens of two states had a revelation and voted for legalization of cannabis. Two other states voted for legalization of marriage for all people. There was bad news as well. California’s Proposition 37, which would have mandated labeling of genetically modified ‘foods’, failed substantially, falling to a campaign funded by the GMO industry itself.

Speaking of GMO: this is now the number one issue that we must focus on. Obama is a friend to this madness, and a friend to Monsanto, therefore we must be vigilant. We don’t have a second planet to go to if GMO destroys the biology here. And each of us are issued only one body.

It would be great if we could do something about the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which Obama signed into effect last Dec. 31. That’s the law that turns the domestic United States into a battlefield in the “war on terror,” and allows for the military to make illegal arrests and imprisonment of American citizens, bypassing the normal judicial process. I will be happy when I start to see so-called conservatives complain about this obvious issue.

The Mercury Retrograde Factor

For a year now, Planet Waves has been sounding the alarm that Mercury would be stationing retrograde on Election Day 2012.

We knew this would happen at the culmination of what seemed to be a national movement to suppress the vote, in particular, the Democratic vote. The Republicans have long known that their ever-more absurd point of view is the relic of another era — and that they were losing ground in the increasingly diverse demographics of the United States. Therefore, as the months went on, no effort to mess with the election seemed too bold, and there was an orchestrated campaign to do so.

Voter roll purges, blocking early voting, demanding unnecessary ID, jury-rigged voting machines, voting systems in a swing state owned by a candidate, misinforming the public in certain areas about the date of the election — we watched a dirty-tricks campaign develop on a scale that Dick Nixon would have been proud of.

The last and only time there was a Mercury station on the day of a presidential election (in 2000), the results were horrendous and have been seemingly never-ending. These include a stolen election, which led to purported terrorist attacks the administration well knew were coming, followed by two wars that continue to cause grief and suffering, tax cuts for the wealthy and giveaways to pharmaceutical companies.

This culminated in a real estate and banking crash that resulted in a handout of trillions of dollars to some of the wealthiest men in the country. An administration that owes nothing to the people is extremely dangerous.

Meanwhile, 2012 was the first presidential election with the Citizens’ United decision in effect, the one allowing the infusion of limitless anonymous cash into television and radio advertising.

The fabled notion of campaign finance reform gave way to the notion that corporations are people and that money is free speech. One of the most amazing things is that the billionaires who financed the Romney campaign and those of dozens of other candidates for federal office got nothing for their money. Democrats won the presidency and gained seats in both houses of Congress.

One issue that I have not seen discussed is the way that the same media that often conducts and then reports on the polls invites a flood of cash by doing so. The closer the polls are, the more money is spent in a given region. Media companies profited to the tune of $6 billion on this campaign. On the long list of conflicts of interest to address, this one must be included.

Prior to Election Day, there was a major disruption, following timing that I described in my articles; this consisted of a storm that served mainly to wreak some havoc in parts of New York and the mid-Atlantic states — and to disrupt the Romney campaign. On Friday, Oct. 26, the lead news item was about pregnancy from rape allegedly being a gift from ‘god’. By Monday, Oct. 29, Mitt Romney was reduced to irrelevancy, all but banned from the East Coast. I know this factor is being disputed as something that changed or even influenced the outcome, and it’s the excuse that Karl Rove is giving to his donors, though I suggest that we not count it out as a factor.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who had been the keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention, said he was “not interested” in touring New Jersey with Romney, and gushed praise for Obama on every news program he could appear on. (When nobody was listening he said he would be voting for Romney.)

On Election Day there were long lines and many reports of issues. But this time, people seemed determined not to be fooled again. We were ready for the lines, and keeping track of the early voting rules that changed day by day in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

When a voting machine in Pennsylvania repeatedly recorded an Obama vote for Romney, the voter was armed with a weapon he would not have had in 2000 or 2004: an iPhone video camera. The video went viral in a matter of minutes, and soon after landed on network and cable news. I received it from my readers at least five times.

Despite the many problems (synthetic and otherwise), the election process functioned and appears to have gone as fairly as possible, given the circ*mstances involved. I have no doubt in my mind that it was the vigilance of the public and the press on these issues, particularly voter suppression in Republican-controlled states, that helped.

In the end, it was Mitt Romney deciding to concede the election that put a stop to any prolonged problems. In my coverage of the Mercury retrograde, I noted that Mercury and Jupiter would be in one another’s signs — a fairly rare condition called mutual reception.

I offered a few interpretations, including how this can indicate “a situation in which seemingly different political theories and approaches actually support one another. In an election, we’re supposed to be differentiating between the candidates, but we don’t usually notice the ways in which their approaches and conduct are similar, identical, or where the ideologies are codependent. An influence of this could be that whatever happened is being planned, or at least accepted, by both sides in the election.”

Mercury can be tricky, and the fact of Obama being elected under a retrograde will influence his entire second term. Given the distinction of this event, we need to keep an eye out for the Mercury retrograde factor, which means never counting anything as a done deal. It’s the government itself that we must ensure does not come unraveled, despite the best efforts of some to do so.

Still, the fact that there was not a train wreck this week was reassuring. As Brian Cechony, one of my readers, astutely pointed out in an email this week, “Election night seemed to go by without a speed bump or roadblock. Now that it’s done it seems to me that retrograde seems to have fallen not on the election itself, but on the Republican Party and — to a larger extent — the right wing view of the world.”

The focus of the astrology was in Sagittarius, and Mercury stationing retrograde in Sagittarius seemed to illustrate a changing view or opinion.

Cechony continued, “Almost from the start the Republicans appeared to be in shock that the way they imagined the world to be was not true. Karl Rove’s meltdown on Fox News about calling Ohio early was a great ‘stormy’ station event. There was ‘shock and awe’ (whether real or feigned) from the likes of Donald Trump and Sarah Palin. Now today [Wednesday] the news is full of dire ‘change or die’ predictions from inside and outside the Republican party.

“I don’t know if it will stick, but I feel like there was a collective shift, a collective line drawn in the sand and a collective muttering from all across America that said, ‘enough of this — we don’t love the president, but this other guy scares the sh*t out of us’.”

One of our research team members, who we identify with the handle Astrodem because he’s a political consultant in Washington, D.C., was influential in our coverage of this event. He even predicted a weather event disrupting the election, which unfortunately did not get into print.

Tuesday night, he posted this message to his Facebook page:

I cannot tell you how relieved I am that this election did not turn into a 2000-style fiasco with a contested outcome in the presidential race. This election had the strong potential to go in that direction. For most of the past two years, it looked like it was being set up to go in precisely that direction. And when historians tell the story of this election, they will be missing a huge part of that story if they fail to call attention to this plainly evident potential.

During that hour last night when the Romney
campaign was refusing to concede, when Karl Rove was contesting Fox News’ electoral math for Ohio, and when Donald Trump was calling for revolution, we caught a glimpse of just how much American self-government depends upon the consent and legitimation of the minority, the opposition, the losing party. For a brief time, the major institutional leaders on the right appeared prepared to withhold that consent. Luckily, their better angels prevailed.

When thinking about what happened last night, understand that this all could have gone very differently. We are truly blessed as a nation that it didn’t.

Scorpio Solar Eclipse: The Tantalus Factor

The next super-interesting event on the astrological radar is a total eclipse of the Sun in Scorpio. That’s on Tuesday [view chart here]. I’ve been saying that this is the first solar eclipse in Scorpio in about a decade; that’s usually how the eclipses run, in a nine-year cycle. I got curious about when the most recent solar eclipse in Scorpio was. I scanned through my book-style Aureas ephemeris, and didn’t find any in the mid-2000s when they should have been.

I checked four times and could find no Scorpio solar eclipses any time during the 2000s. So then I used a power tool — my friend Tracy’s online resource, Serennu.com — and called up a search on all solar eclipses between 1989 and 2012, and it turns out that there hasn’t been a solar eclipse in Scorpio since Oct. 24, 1995.

The last time the lunar nodes passed through Taurus and Scorpio was in 2003-2004. However, as occasionally happens, the cosmos served up a series of lunar eclipses in Scorpio but no solar eclipses. (We were in a similar situation with the total solar eclipse of Aug. 11, 1999, in Leo.)

All eclipses shake up the energy; solar eclipses do it in their special way, happening when the Sun is in a particular sign, and initiating a kind of reset sequence on the creative and expressive energy associated with that sign. Eclipses typically shift or disrupt the continuity and the flow of events. This carries the theme of the sign where they appear. They tend to accelerate and concentrate experience, and can come with the sense that more karma is at stake than usual. In this way they are both dependable and useful.

The realm of Scorpio is about sexuality, reproduction, the exchange of resources, and a relationship to death; hence, it’s sometimes called the sign of ‘death and transformation’. I think of it as the sign of the mysteries of birth and death, including the ultimate merging of resources — reproduction. When Aleister Crowley designed the Death card in his tarot deck (the one associated with Scorpio), he had it illustrated with a long spiral strand of DNA extending from the distant past into the present (not bad for the 1930s, given that the double helix was not discovered until 1953).

Seventeen years is a long time for there to be no solar eclipses in a sign — especially one as close to the core of human experience and consciousness as is Scorpio. And now we’re about to have one, which is sure to flush some of that rich silt up from the bottom of the river and out onto the flood plain, as well as a good bit of fear.

Scorpio is sensitive territory for most people; it contains all that taboo subject matter that makes most people squirm, and that we secretly crave. The astrology, including this eclipse and Saturn in Scorpio, suggests that this is indeed the correct time for a long-overdue catharsis on the issue of sexuality, on every level — something that’s already begun and that many are noticing.

This eclipse is conjunct a minor planet called Tantalus. There is a reminder here that most of how we express sex in our society involves a never-ending tease, or the lure of fulfillment that seems to be constantly elusive.

Often it seems like there’s a conspiracy against getting free from this tease. It involves encountering stuck, unquestioned values in others, the web of those who would shame us or the fear of gossip — one of the most common forms of sexual repression.

The tease can manifest as the sexy but no sex phenomenon, as sex being used as part of a bait and switch tactic, turning sex into a commodity (in advertising, for example) or the approach-avoid situation that’s so typical of those who struggle with sexual guilt and shame. It can also appear in those who feel their only power (including over themselves) is their ability to withhold pleasure.

There’s something happening on what you might call the metaphysical level. Scorpio reminds us that there is a relationship between sex and death. That nexus may be the essence of Scorpio, leading so many to be so fearful of intimacy. Physical death happens once, but it’s an idea that follows us every day of our lives. Sex happens many times for most people, and it is stalked by the concept of death, which we try so hard to push into the background.

What they have in common is the inevitability of change and the profound allure of surrender. Intimacy is a form of release, and it also portends the ‘death’ of the self we were prior to the experience of connection. There is the meeting with the person we regard as ‘the other’, with all of the mixed emotions, desire and passion that otherness represents.

Every sexual encounter is a new creative moment and opportunity for self-discovery, which contains within it a message that the experience is transient and will eventually be let go of. I’ve observed that we have the choice to make peace with this transience, or resort to lives dominated by envy, jealousy and control. We’re taught to think of these things as virtues; I would say the virtue would come in working through the underlying material — signified by this event.

This eclipse is square the centaur planet Nessus in Aquarius, which reminds us to be aware of the sexual abuse legacy lurking just beneath the gloss of the sexiness and the tease. Our abuse legacy is held by individuals and then spreads on a collective (group, Aquarius) level. It may be the most significant thing we encounter in the seeming conspiracy against sex, though the connection is difficult to make.

Consider that half the people you meet have experienced some form of rape or sexual abuse; many more have experienced the effects of a parent who has had this experience. Few people want to discuss this openly, though the time has arrived.

Mercury is about to retrograde back into Scorpio. Before it does so, it makes an exact square to Neptune on the day of the total solar eclipse. The square extends from Sagittarius to Pisces, and this contact of Mercury and Neptune is inviting an inquiry into the lies that are sold to us as spirituality and religion. Neptune for its part is stationing direct as this square happens, as if it’s willing to release some of its secrets.

As we investigate and question our (perhaps cherished) beliefs, ideals and tendency to denial, Mercury plunges back into Scorpio, encouraging you to find a new depth of honesty with yourself about the issues and topics that are the most challenging to contemplate and that often seem impossible to talk about.

That is the next step, as Mercury explores the sensitive last degrees of Scorpio, encouraging us to take that inner honesty out into the world and use it as a means to make contact with others, embracing change, contact and depth. In the search for meaning, this counts for getting real.

Lovingly,

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Total Solar Eclipse, with Mars on the Galactic Core

Tuesday at 5:09 pm EST is the first solar eclipse in Scorpio since 1995. That’s a while, if you consider that I wrote my first horoscope column in April 1995. When there are no solar eclipses in a sign for a long time, the feeling can be like pent-up energy behind a dam, which suddenly bursts when the eclipse happens. With Scorpio, as mentioned above, this will include deeply personal material related to sex, death and the exchange of resources.

The eclipse seems to illustrate the release of aggressive instincts into something more constructively passionate. There is also the message not to take things so personally. We see this in Mars, the ruler of Scorpio (and thus of the eclipse) in Sagittarius — placed on the Galactic Core. Mars is a personal planet; the Galactic Core offers a wide perspective, even on a global or cosmic level. The GC operates in the background of everything.

One message here is that desire is cosmic in nature. It’s not a moral issue any more than breathing is, and like breath, it represents the forward movement of existence. What contacts the Galactic Core can have an exotic feeling, even seeming to be unattainable, impossible to describe or even feel in the usual sense. When you combine this with Mars, the result can be cosmic desire that’s yearning for expression in a human, physical and emotional way.

Meanwhile, Mercury is also in Sagittarius, in an especially interesting position: it’s square both Neptune and a hypothetical point called Transpluto. This is a message to question one specific lie: that your existence is wrong. This is a lie propagated by religion, for example in the form of ‘original sin’. Going back further into Jewish tradition, we have the idea of an omniscient God who is concerned with every last detail of what we do; the Jews thus invented guilt. If you’re Muslim, you would get the idea that your existence is wrong if you’re female (and there are plenty of messages coming through Judaism and Christianity to the same effect).

The alignment of retrograde Mercury, Neptune and Transpluto is an invitation to question this assault on nature in general and on your own nature. To do so, you will need to stay awake, stay with your feelings and know that self-criticism is the problem and not the solution. When in doubt, open up to yourself first and then to others.

As of Friday morning EST, the Moon is in Virgo, about to make a square to Mars in Sagittarius (and also making squares to a variety of subtle planets, such as Ixion). Once again this is a caution against getting caught in mental frustration. Focus on one task and get it done. Cleaning and organizing might actually help you clear your mind. Remember that Mercury is retrograde; what you think is a problem may not actually be one. Apply gentle effort and give it some time to work out. Don’t fix what is not broken.

The Moon ingresses Libra overnight Friday to Saturday EST (at 4:35 am EST), where it will take a trip on the cardinal cross — opposing Uranus, squaring Pluto and making a conjunction to Pluto-like Typhon Saturday and into Sunday.

The Moon ingresses Scorpio at 6:10 am EST Monday, where it picks up on Neptune and Chiron in Pisces and makes a conjunction to Saturn in Scorpio. This series of aspects has a clairvoyant feeling — just make sure that if you have your remote sensors on, you are willing to deal with any information you pick up. On the other side, the mix of Neptune, Chiron and Saturn can have the feeling of giving tangible form to your imagination.

Finally, the solar eclipse happens Tuesday, in a conjunction to Tantalus, opposite Sphinx and square Nessus (see last section of lead article for delineation).

Election Day Grab Bag

Astrologers all over have had their eyes on this week’s presidential race and Mercury’s retrograde station on Election Day for more than a year, holding their collective breath in anticipation of ballot machine funny business, recounts and perhaps a stolen presidency, but the day served up a number of smaller-scale surprises, many of them positive.

Election Day 2012 turned out to be a good day for women in politics. The two GOP ‘rape guys’ were defeated in their bids for U.S. Senate: Todd Akin, of “legitimate rape” fame, lost to female incumbent Claire McCaskill in Missouri; Richard Mourdock, who declared rape pregnancies to be “God’s will,” lost to Joe Donnelly in Indiana. In Florida, voters defeated a measure that called for amending the state constitution to restrict abortion rights and bar public funds from funding abortions.

Women will hold 20 out of 100 seats in the Senate, the most ever, as five new women won seats. Elizabeth Warren, who had been blocked by Republicans from her nomination by Obama to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, defeated incumbent Scott Brown in Massachusetts.

Current Democratic Representatives Tammy Baldwin in Wisconsin and Mazie Hirono in Hawaii were both elected to the Senate. Hirono becomes the first Asian-American woman elected to the Senate, Hawaii’s first woman senator, the Senate’s first Buddhist and the first U.S. senator born in Japan — f*ckushima, no less. Baldwin will be the first openly gay member of the Senate. The other new women senators are Republican Nebraska state legislator Deb Fischer and former North Dakota Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp, a Democrat.

Green Party candidate Jill Stein finished her bid for president with more than 400,000 votes in 37 states as of Thursday — or about 0.5 percent of those states’ popular vote totals. Among other factors, the tight race between Obama and Romney likely scared away those Democrats wanting to make a ‘protest vote’ against some Obama’s policies. Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, former Republican governor of New Mexico, won about 1.2 million votes, or a about 1.2 percent of the total popular presidential vote in the 48 states in which he ran.

In addition to the ballot initiatives highlighted in other sections of this issue, two states legalized recreational use of marijuana. Seventeen states plus Washington, D.C., currently approve and regulate the medical use of cannabis. But on Tuesday, Washington State and Colorado set themselves up to go head to head with the federal government on its recreational use.

“Marijuana policy reform remains an issue where the people lead and the politicians follow,” said Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, which opposes the ‘War on Drugs’. “But Washington State shows that many politicians are beginning to catch up.” The measure establishes a system of state-licensed marijuana growers, processors and retail stores, where you can buy up to an ounce if you’re over 21. It also establishes a standard blood test limit for driving under the influence. Once rules are set to govern the weed industry, taxes on pot are projected to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

Colorado voters also approved a measure backing a constitutional amendment that would call for the limiting of corporate spending on elections, flying in the face of the Citizens’ United ruling that opened the floodgates to unprecedented campaign spending. Montana voters overwhelmingly approved a similar measure.

Not all of the surprises were good news, however. Among the higher-profile disappointments, California voted not to repeal the death penalty. California voters also failed to pass Prop 37, a measure aimed at labeling GMO foods. That initiative faced tremendous spending to sway voters by the opposition, which included major corporations such as Monsanto, Dow Chemical, Pepsi and co*ke.

In the end, there were in fact Mercury-retrograde glitches and incidents of interference with voters in several states (you can read a brief summary here) — even without the widespread chaos, delays and lack of resources in the parts of New York and New Jersey worst hit by Sandy. But so far, it seems Mercury was fairly kind to us Tuesday. As everything unfolds, the question becomes how to stay involved past the ballot box.

Bradley Manning Offers Partial Plea

On Wednesday, accused U.S. Army whistleblower Bradley Manning offered to submit a partial guilty plea on charges of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks, in return for the government agreeing to pursue lesser charges. Manning is reportedly ready to admit to leaking the documents to WikiLeaks but is refusing to plead guilty to the charges of espionage or aiding the enemy, which carry harsh penalties. He has been held in military custody since May 2010, following his arrest while serving in Iraq, but the current proceedings are still only in preparation for a court-martial. The presiding judge may or may not decide to consider the plea bargain to be legally permissible; if so, the U.S. government may still choose to “prove up the charged offenses,” according to Manning’s attorney, Denver Nicks.

Four for Four: Marriage Equality in 2012

Ballot initiatives in four states established or in some way protected same-sex marriage on Tuesday. Maine became the first state to establish same-sex marriage by popular vote through a ballot initiative explicitly in support of allowing it, rather than by voting down a proposed repeal. In May 2009, Maine was temporarily the first state to establish same-sex marriage through the legislature with the governor’s signature (rather than following a judicial ruling), until the measure was repealed by referendum six months later, after opponents gathered enough signatures to put it on the ballot.

Maryland‘s governor signed a same-sex marriage act into law in March 2012, and it was upheld Tuesday by popular vote, defeating a repeal placed on the ballot by opponents. Voters in Washington State upheld a bill signed by the governor in February 2012 legalizing same-sex marriage, in a process similar to Maryland’s. In Minnesota, same-sex marriage is still not legal, but voters did successfully vote down a measure that would have enacted a constitutional amendment banning recognition of such unions.

Sun in Scorpio + Mercury in Retrograde = Condoms in p*rn

Activists in the highly regulated Los Angeles p*rn industry were shocked by the passage of Measure B, which will make condom use in p*rnography mandatory there. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which put the measure on the ballot, believes it will protect performers in the adult entertainment industry from HIV/AIDS and other STIs. Opponents argue that the p*rn industry’s testing guidelines and practice of self-reporting when tests are positive are not only effective, but create much safer conditions than most people encounter when they take someone home from a bar.

Performers James Deen and Jessica Drake had spoofed what a p*rn shoot might become if Measure B passed, with crew in full safety gear and a health inspector watching the proceedings.

But their very real concerns include that the higher cost to taxpayers under these regulations (to pay for the health inspectors) — and the fact that condom-only p*rn is not financially viable — may drive the industry out of L.A., to areas where there are no health protections or regulations, such as internally initiated shutdowns if someone tests positive. The measure also points to the deeper prejudices toward sex workers underlying Measure B’s passage.

“In the years that we spent documenting performers’ stories, we were consistently faced with the commonly accepted stereotypes that performers are victims, substance abusers, or damaged individuals who need to be saved or rehabilitated,” explained Paul Sarkis, whose book Off the Set examines the lives of ten p*rn stars. He remarked that stereotypes are “often used to dehumanize them,” but those he spoke to represented “an acutely self-aware community of individuals struggling to express themselves on their own terms.”

Maddow Sums it Up in One Minute

RACHEL MADDOW: And thanks to you for staying with us this hour.

That happened! That really happened. We are not going to have a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe v. Wade. There will be no more Antonin Scalias and Samuel Alitos added to this court.

We’re not going to repeal health reform. Nobody is going to kill Medicare and make old people in this generation or any other generation fight it out on the open market to try to get themselves health insurance. We are not going to do that.

We are not going to give a 20 percent tax cut to millionaires and billionaires and expect programs ike food stamps and kids’ insurance to cover the cost of that tax cut.

We’re not going to make you clear it with your boss if you want to get birth control under the insurance plan that you’re on.

We are not going to redefine rape.

We are not going to amend the United States Constitution to stop gay people from getting married.

We are not going to double Guantanamo.

We are not eliminating the Department of Energy or the Department of Education or housing at the federal level.

We are not going to spend $2 trillion on the military that the military does not want. We are not scaling back on student loans, because the country’s new plan is that you should borrow money from your parents.

We are not vetoing the DREAM Act. We are not self-deporting. We are not letting Detroit go bankrupt.

We are not starting a trade war with China on Inauguration Day in January. We are not going to have, as a president, a man who once led a mob of friends to run down a scared, gay kid, to hold him down and forcibly cut his hair off with a pair of scissors while that kid cried and screamed for help and there was no apology, not ever.

We are not going to have a Secretary of State John Bolton. We are not bringing Dick Cheney back. We are not going to have a foreign policy shop stocked with architects of the Iraq war. We are not going to do it.

We had the chance to do that if we wanted to do that, as a country. And we said no, last night, loudly.

Looking Back at the Election

In this week’s edition of Planet Waves FM, I recap the election and the surrounding political issues. I don’t cover as much of the astrology as I was planning, but have covered it thoroughly in this issue’s lead article above — specifically Tuesday’s total solar eclipse in Scorpio.

Your Monthly Horoscopes — and our Publishing Schedule Notes

Planet Waves Monthly Horoscopes provide a broader perspective that surveys the themes of the coming month and often, weeks that follow. Inner Space for November was published Tuesday, Oct. 30.

The November Monthly Horoscope was published Friday, Oct. 26. I recommend reviewing the monthly horoscope at the end of the month. The October Moonshine Horoscope was published Tuesday, Oct. 16. Please note that the longer monthly horoscope is being incorporated into the Friday issue after the Sun has entered a new sign; Inner Space still publishes on Tuesdays.

Scorpio Birthdays Near the Eclipse

If you have a birthday anywhere near Tuesday’s eclipse — arguably, all Scorpios — now is the time to stop flirting with life, and to start living the way you want to live. Making a decision may seem like giving up on all the other options, but not doing so equates to the same thing. There is a reminder in your solar chart to investigate the factor that all your relationships seem to have in common, and to notice where this came from; it’s not especially difficult to see. It may be difficult to acknowledge, especially if you define something as a problem (so that you can solve it) — but people around you don’t see it that way. One of the inherent messages of Scorpio is to sort out what is your business from that of someone else. You don’t need all those other people in order to be happy, and at the same time there really is not a conspiracy to prevent you from gaining your contentment or peace of mind. It would help if you realize that your values are actually different from those of many of the people you surround yourself with, and you will feel little in the way of actual support until you choose to surround yourself with significant others who support who you’re becoming and not who you were in the past. Note to Scorpios: On the day of Hurricane Sandy, right at the peak of the Full Moon, I recorded your birthday reading. It includes two sections of astrology, and a bonus section of financial astrology in a third section, along with your tarot card reading. You may purchase that affordably priced reading here.

Aries (March 20-April 19) — It’s time to take the high road, no matter what anyone else is doing, saying or trying to convince you of. By that, I mean a peaceful approach, and one that’s connected to the ‘something much larger than yourself’ that you’re likely to be feeling right now. Stay in contact with that feeling, and the perspective that it can offer you. This will help you see the personal events of your life in context, including how you respond to people in your environment and how they respond to you. You seem to be grappling with a question of sincerity, perhaps on your own part. If you’re feeling uneasy about anything, ask yourself if you’re in denial of what should be an obvious fact. Then ask yourself what might be motivating you to feel this way. Is it wishful thinking? Are you afraid to admit something? Are you concerned you might offend someone? Whatever the reason may be, keep your wide perspective. Remember that we are in a kind of dance of growth and evolution and that everyone is involved, including you.

Hello Aries — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). If you would like to hear your Aries birthday reading, please visit this link.

Taurus (April 19-May 20) — You are encountering the mystical aspect of sexuality — likely through a partner or partners. Yes, you also have a direct connection, though currently your experience involves what you might think of as transcending yourself through someone else and your experience of him or her. If this doesn’t have a specifically erotic feeling, you might notice it in other relational experiences that involve deep bonding. Yet with so much happening in your opposite sign Scorpio right now, sexuality is on the radar. One theme to watch is ‘what you cannot have’ or ‘what you’re denied’ or possibly ‘what you deny yourself’. This is the very thing that may be acting as the enticement or portal for you to go further. It’s essential that you explore your relationship to withholding or denying, because through doing that you will better understand your willingness to give, to share and to offer. You have it in you right now to discover just how unlimited you are.

Hello Taurus — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). If you would like to hear your Taurus birthday reading, please visit this link.

Gemini (May 20-June 21) — Are you being driven by a false sense of survivalism? It may be disguised as defending your values, though I suggest you question whether you’re motivated by fear. This may be pushing you (for example) to believe the side of the story that goes against your interests. In any event, you need to be more skeptical of your point of view, at least for a few weeks, and be open to what facts come your way. Give everything and everyone a fair hearing, and allow an opportunity for reconsideration. Your tendency at the moment is to believe what sounds convincing rather than what is true. You may even forget that there’s a difference — and when that happens, usually there is something behind the scenes driving the impulse. This might be wishful thinking. You might be resisting looking within. You might prefer your fantasy over reality. In the end, there is no power in illusions.

Hello Gemini — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). Have you listened to your birthday reading? Click here for an hour of astrology plus a tarot reading by Eric.

Cancer (June 21-July 22) — Next week’s total solar eclipse is a reminder that you have a potent desire nature, and that it’s directly connected to your emotional body. For you this eclipse is a sexy chart, full of tension, curiosity and craving to explore. There’s also the theme of what you allow yourself to have, what you share with others, and the subtleties of the ways you withhold. Indeed, this chart is like an experiment in the differences between allowing and denying; offering and actually giving; wanting and receiving. I would caution you that this subtle discussion is often plastered over with various social rules (not wanting to be seen as a slu*t), culturally-acceptable motives and values that deny the emotional and sensory levels of experience (such as being turned on by money), and a general prohibition on curiosity. This is the day, the week and the season of your life when curiosity is your best friend. And if you have another best friend or two, you can create a space for, and share, that curiosity. It’s a force of nature — as are you.

Hello Cancer — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). To hear your birthday reading for the year ahead, please visit this link.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23) — There is no place like home, and home is a feeling as well as a place. The feeling these days is about clearing out space, both psychic and physical clutter of the past. Whether you start with three-dimensional space or emotional space, opening up one is likely to lead to the other. Cleaning closets is an emotional process, whether it be subtle or profound. When you’re moving energy on the inner planes, you may just find yourself cleaning out the attic or digging out the basem*nt. In all respects, think of this as claiming back what is yours, and taking control over your environment. You may start to get the sensation that you’re looking for something specific, which you’re not certain even exists. It may be a physical object, a memory, a feeling or an idea — be open, and treat anything you’re doing as a simultaneous inner and outer exploration. Notice how you treat things or feelings that evoke negativity in any form. Pause before you ‘throw anything away’ with the conscious intention of seeking understanding and making peace.

Hello Leo — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). To hear your birthday reading for the year ahead, please visit this link.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) — You are reaching into the meaning of honesty, in particular where your emotions meet your communication in your relationships, and where this shapes your experience of yourself. All of these things exist within a dynamic energy system: that is, all of the forces shape one another and the movements guide one another. You can think of this as exploring within yourself for the space of perfect honesty, the spot where you can admit to yourself exactly what you feel. Explore gently and when you find the warm current, follow it in. And then — if and when the moment is right — use words and feelings to reach to another person and make contact. They don’t necessarily have to be present in your space; long-distance modes of communication count. And even if this experience is wholly ‘self-contained’, spoken to no other, the sense of completion and inner communion will be palpable. I believe that it’s this inner self-immersion you are craving, and each time you go there, the feeling will ripple out into your environment.

Hello Virgo — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). To hear your birthday reading for the year ahead, please visit this link.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) — How you feel about yourself, what you feel about yourself — this is the nature of your quest now. I say this knowing that you are experiencing dark and light spots, many questions and a quest for self-discovery. Everything in your life surrounds this investigation — and that’s what it is. On one level, you’re experimenting with your identity, and how you project yourself into the world. On another, there’s a kind of emotional vortex that’s opening up, where you can immerse yourself in some of the deepest questions about the meaning and value of your existence. Imagine you’re sailing around an island, looking for an alcove that’s difficult to spot, and that few people ever find. Then you see it, and then you go in, not knowing what you will discover. Go in gently, honoring the fact that some of what you find will be frightening, some will mystify you and other elements will embrace you passionately. This thing known as a ‘self’ is vastly complex, and you no longer need to deny or avoid that complexity; this is your moment to indulge in its beauty, which is the beauty that you contain within you.

Hello Libra — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed). To hear your birthday reading for the year ahead, please visit this link .

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) — Teasing is not a way of life — and if you find that you’re going in that direction, you might want to reconsider. By teasing, I mean offering anything to yourself (particularly an emotional or erotic experience) but not coming through; using your appeal to lead anyone on, for some ‘other purpose’; or any situation where your presentation and your intention do not align fully. I suggest you avoid teasing yourself with what you want, a kind of drama that reenacts a family situation (playing out in your own head) about what you’re ‘supposed to be’, versus what you actually want to do. You may be trying to lure yourself with promises, or with various benefits from a proposed compromise, all of which are likely to leave you just out of reach of fulfillment. I suggest you take a more straightforward approach to your desires, and those of others. If you set an ethical code, “Someone’s desire is not an opportunity for me to focus power,” you and the people you care about will be a lot happier. There’s another side to this — your desire is not an opportunity for someone else to focus their power over you.

Hello Scorpio — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) — Desire is the activating principle of the universe, at least where humans are concerned. This is one reason why honest desire is so taboo, and why it’s so often shuffled into pointless materialism rather than true aspiration. Because both expressions of desire manifest and focus energy, both come with a mystical sensation. Few people would say that acquiring a pair of shoes is some kind of spiritual experience, though the same basic laws apply to self-understanding, gaining worldly knowledge or expressing yourself in a way that has meaning to others. Simply, you know what you want and you concentrate your energy in that direction. Often, it will actually happen, or at least something interesting will develop. It’s just that where physical objects and even money are concerned, the methods are fairly obvious and direct. Where spiritual matters are concerned, the guiding principles are less tangible, though it’s helpful if you keep love and desire in the same gesture. Your chart tells me you can now distinguish these levels of experience — and choose the one you want. Here is a clue: if it happens to be about shoes, the message is about where you will walk in them.

Hello Sagittarius — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) — For the next week or so, notice how you feel being seen, particularly in public places. ‘Being seen’ may translate to the sensation of being felt, and being responded to, which even under normal circ*mstances is an experience that can arrive with depth and vulnerability. It’s as if you feel naked in public, which may soon feel like naked and under a spotlight. What’s different about this moment is the influence you’re having on your environment, and the way that the vibes you exchange with others can influence your perception of yourself. The sensation factor is going up: deeper feelings, with a more poignant effect, and it’s like a feedback loop. There’s a word for it, which is biophilia. For a concise explanation from one who knows what’s she’s talking about, play the recording at the bottom of Bjork.com. Meanwhile, as you navigate this territory, it’s best to make small, subtle moves. There’s no point running for the shadows when you can adjust your posture by a millimeter or two and get a much better effect.

Hello Capricorn — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) — You can do what you want in this lifetime; the question for now is how you get there. There’s an aspect of this related to how you conduct yourself in the world — the agreements and commitments you make (and whether you keep them), your ability to focus on what you want, indeed, your ability even to know what you want — which leads to the internal part of the process. Your necessity now is to align your most important goals with your most deeply held values. This is not merely a spiritual exercise. It’s about focusing your intentions and your energy and making choices from a centered place. Here is the problem: lately you seem to doubt what you’ve decided really matters. New ambitions are pushing aside long-held goals, and you may not be sure of them, or confident of where they will lead you. You are approaching a point of contact within yourself; a point of clarity. A lot will start to make sense in a short period of time, as long as you don’t resist. Be flexible. You will not break.

Hello Aquarius — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) — This is a rich creative moment for you, and you’re what’s being created. Everything you make, illustrate, sing, write, touch and see is an extension of that same creative process, though it starts with you. So put the fruit into the juicer and give yourself a squeeze. In whatever you’re doing, emphasize beauty. That’s what will bring you the greatest pleasure, and nourish your whole environment. This may have the feeling of a search for truth, which is an accurate description of the astrology involved. Express beauty and do so all the time. Become this message. I mean this in the most pragmatic ways — whether you’re on a date, in a job interview or up at 3:30 am covered in paint (or sweat). Next week’s eclipse in Scorpio is a reminder to all those with a Pisces soul, indeed all those who have made contact with their soul, that the ultimate creativity and expression of mysticism is sexuality in any compassionate form. We think we have many reasons to contradict this, though they melt when met with a direct experience.

Hello Pisces — Eric has written a new description for your sign that you have access to from this link (no password needed).