Planet Waves Horoscope
for the week of Feb. 6, 2004

Aries (March 20-April 19)
Events are conspiring to bring out the child in you, and if they're not, you'd better get some new events, because that child wants to leap and fly. Is it true that you had far more confidence decades ago, when you could barely read and had nobody to impress? The longer life goes on, the more of a tendency you may have to get hung up on the concept of "spiritual." This is an ineffective substitute for a wide diversity of other human states, such as passionate, curious, driven and provoked. Little kids want direct knowledge of the world; they are not content with ideas about life. I strongly suggest you take their lead. You may think this requires confidence. In fact it will give you confidence.
 

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
Once again you've arrived at a point where you are able to break a deadlock on the way your parents' limited perspectives have influenced the events of your life. I think this is something we need to do every day, but the influence of Friday's Full Moon across the angles of your chart associated with ambition, security, professional activities and your home base suggest that you're striving for an unusual degree of independence from the supposed limits that were set on you long ago. It is not necessary to understand their motives in order for you to move in wider circles of your own, but it is necessary to know the difference between being on a longer leash and the ability to roam freely where you will.
 

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
The tension of this particular moment in your life is about to break, and leave you wondering what all the anxiety and fuss were about. From the look of your chart, you will soon find yourself in rare form in the areas of problem solving, creative ideas and a social vision that can truly be called holistic. There's also a contact point between those ideas and people who can use them. Strive to understand the impact of what you create on the larger world, including who profits financially and why, and who grows and prospers spiritually and why. This is called being responsible for the results of your all-powerful mind. It is the essence of ethics. The beauty of where you stand right now is that, to one side, you can see the necessities of preserving the established order; to the other, you can see the beauty of creating something far better.
 

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
In the most practical sense, you're at an authentic moment of negotiating your financial wellbeing. The Leo Full Moon this week presents you with a number of opportunities to improve your lot in life, but the main benefit is about acknowledging your real worth in this world, and holding that awareness in your body as a permanent state of consciousness. In truth, it should be the most stable element of your often-cyclical nature. Take hold of the recognition of what you have to offer to people and circumstances. Find where your dreams have everything in common with those who benefit from your presence in the world. What is good for you is good for everyone, but you have to notice to receive the gifts. Awareness has its benefits.
 

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
There seems to be a taboo against questioning why we're happy when good times show up, as if by inquiring we might break the spell. But that leaves us wondering what to do when times are less than perfect, or thinking that simple contentment is some vast mystery. You seem to have reached a balance; in understanding that you really can solve your own problems at the same time as you've arrived at a true sense of the inherent transience of life. This has taken you beyond hope and beyond tragedy to a place where you recognise that, since anything is possible, you might as well make reasonable decisions and see what happens. You seem to be doing something else as well, which is appreciating people for both their light and their shadow -- which is both healthy and resourceful.


Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
Beware of pride, and of a tendency to let feelings of grandeur get beyond your usual grounded sense of who you are. Pride is not a sin, it's merely a psychological posture with certain risks at the moment. I strongly suggest you maintain your focus on the most practical matters, at least for the next week or so. It's often a good idea to use what you know, but the current stellar set-up is advising that what you find out winds up as different than you now think, particularly if it involves certain matters involving privacy, technology, and the highest levels of business affairs. Of course, you may be right, and there is such a thing as a conspiracy. I suggest, however, that you leave other people to their games and not get yourself involved in matters that have little bearing on your present circumstances.


Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
There is, as you know, a time to calculate and be shrewd, and there is a time to turn your light on to full intensity and charm all the world. Do I even need to finish this paragraph? In case you're not noticing, you are in full-on charisma node. The question is why you might resist your own potent effect on people, or hesitate beaming with your full heat and light. It appears to come down to a bit of secret knowledge you're holding that is serving mainly to make you feel vulnerable and perhaps a bit guilty. You have to trust yourself with this information and not even think you're going to use it against anyone. Yet on a deeper level is the fear that you might somehow hurt yourself. This is an unnecessary disturbance and in reality an ancient psychological relic. Stay in the moment. It is a rather excellent moment.


Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
The current round of personal encounters is offering you an opportunity to dive into a kind of experience that you typically find yourself negotiating for, waiting for or attempting to sell to others in an effort to have some of it for yourself. Drop the sales pitch and taste the fruit that's pretty much right in your face. Too much waiting, chasing and being "too intense" has taught you a love of the chase that you need to forget about if you want to get to the party, and a party there is. It is rare that you meet people or encounter potential experiences that can match your considerable and rather unique energy -- rare enough that you may have deemed it a rare hope, or counted out the possibility. It's time to count in positive numbers and not negative ones.


Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22)
Things seem to be going well. But how well is well enough? Usually we have no idea how good life is until we express our wealth, personal gifts or success in some tangible way. Misers are miserable simply because they withhold themselves. The prevailing logic of the world says that to give something is to give it up. I would propose that in this case, to give what you have is to keep it. And it gets better yet. The accompanying discovery is that you have far more than you ever imagined. Take this on the most private level (rather than business or social) and you're more likely to see what I mean. Your instincts are telling you that you need to express an emotional reality of some kind, and express it from the deepest and most generous place within you. It may feel like a tremendous personal risk. More good will come of it than you think.


Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
You're not going to get what you want by reason, or what you need. If the world or someone in it is tantalising you and not coming through with the goods, try approaching the situation with ordinary desire rather than what seems to be your current trend of convoluted intellectualising. You know getting out of your head is going to work. You also know you're likely to open Pandora's box if you get real with yourself. The question is what you find down there. Per the popular myth, one would predict that you'd find hope. I propose you'll find the gut-level knowledge that constantly conniving yourself to give up your deepest desires is a form of abuse that's been perpetrated on you since you were very young. Give the abuser a name and you'll get yourself one big step closer to a kind freedom, the kind you've only heard about.
 

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
We learn by example, especially when it comes to learning passion. This will happen to you in some new respect soon enough. Meanwhile, I can lay a little theory on you. Passion is freedom. One's inner ability to feel pleasure, pain and hunger are tantamount to the ability to breathe. Yet passion is a feeling that many people think threatens the known order of reality, which is typically maintained by emotional control. This is another term for morality. You neither need to be afraid to let go, nor of the unusual psychic depth to which this will take you. You're being reminded of a dimension of who you really are but are so often uncomfortable showing to others. The discomfort comes from the act of hiding. It seems to prove its own validity. Only you can prove something else.


Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
You offer your service through your creative gifts, and your service must be gifted to the world in a way that creates. In other words, you're not a fixer, analyser or performer. You are one who brings in the new, the news and the unknown. Work and service are the direct expression of the creator, and they are the creator's reflection and manifestation in this world. Few people get this; fewer yet have the courage to allow the change that creation implies. Last but not least, there is what I will call a theological issue. A lot of people are very hung up on having been created by God, with the whole process ending there. You are getting in touch with the truth that you create yourself, and that this gives others permission to do the same.


Aquarius Birthdays This Week

Basic to the inner nature of Aquarius is the tension between conformity and rebellion. Most Aquarians struggle to walk a fine line, or to reconcile these two seemingly different aspects of their nature. This is a genuine, palpable struggle and if you're born under this sign, it can make you wonder whether you don't belong on one side of the fence or the other in some significant way: cop, revolutionary, politician, radical activist, corporate chief or Greenpeace activist.

Yet most dilemmas are false dilemmas. The main point is, you want to make a difference but closer to the mark is that you need to make a difference -- and not just in the world, but in the actual lives of people who make up the world. I don't think you've ever been closer to effecting real change than you are today, and this potential has its roots in a process that you've been working through for years and have just come to an awareness of recently. It has indeed taken you a long time to discover what is important to you and why. It has taken until now for you to embody those values and to begin to feel them working in your life in tangible ways.

The most recent development has been the sudden, truly mysterious reminder of where you were so many years ago, and what was influencing your thinking. At the same time, you're catching glimpses of where you will be in the distant future, but not, as it happens, how you're going to get there. This may be leaving you in an odd place: suspended between the full awareness of the roots of your current situation, and what feels like an ultimate destination that may have the feeling of a pipe dream. And, as ever, you want to do the right thing, the mature thing and the natural thing.

They may not be the same thing. So why not stick to doing what is natural? That is the question of the year. Most people don't stick to natural because it ranges from inconvenient to impossible. But living your natural life is a perfect example of reconciling an act that is at once traditional -- nature has been around for a while -- and rebellious -- since in the world of botox, boob jobs and hair colouring, natural is hardly in style. To most people, encased in pretence, feeling natural is quite disturbing.

I suggest you push this one. If being real, unpainted and plain on the surface feels odd, then odd you must feel. If being aware involves being aware of the more or less continuous discomfort associated with growth, then welcome the feeling and let it keep you awake. Look around and notice how the world moves like it's in a trance. You may find yourself in the somewhat strange state of being in a trance and being aware of it at the same time; that's a lot like being in a lucid dream. But the point of the dream is to give you an opportunity to learn something real you can use in your waking life.

This will be a year of mastering many lessons and skills you've tried to learn in the past, sometimes desperately. Yet the most important of these is allowing change to happen while at the same time remaining aware of the part of you that does not change. That stable, clear inner aspect does not need to be a doctor, lawyer or Indian chief. It does not need to be a revolutionary. It needs to be human -- in the form of one who lives and breathes like it's really worth the effort, in the form of lover who both feels love and trusts its process, and in the form of one whose anger becomes passion and not resentment.++

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Planet Waves Weekly International Edition
6 Feb. 2004, Version 1.0

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Editing & Research by Tracy Delaney
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