Speaking of Work

About a page into yesterday's continuation of the "Finding Your Right Work" essay on the 6th and 10th houses, my mind said: hello, we're not writing any more. I have basically slept since then. So, I'm taking this opportunity to call it a year, and quite a year it's been. That essay and the associated series are still on tap. Thank you for unusual number of highly enthusiastic letters in response to last week's essay.

Planet Waves and particularly its writer will be in low energy mode for the rest of 2004, through the New Year holiday. That means there will be Friday horoscopes and birthday reports, some blogging, and little else. Normal publishing will resume with the edition of Friday, Jan. 7, 2005.* I'll release the 2005 annual horoscope when I feel ready -- it seems prudent to do this after a break, with a change of perspective. In January, I plan to do a series of articles on 2005's transits, which include sign changes by both Chiron and Saturn.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your support and friendship. We are a small community at Planet Waves, with our work supported by our readers and clients around the world. Yet at the same time, many people close to me, truly, my spiritual family, make it possible for me to provide this service, through their love, generosity and considerable effort; some of their names are listed in the masthead at the bottom of the newsletter. There are others. Thank you.

To everyone -- our readers on every continent including Antarctica, old friends, new friends, kids I met on the train to Amsterdam, bartenders in Boston, all the editors we relentlessly spam so you don't forget we exist, the editors who use this column, my true and beautiful buddies on Vashon Island, the sparky crew in Tallahassee who keep the clocks ticking, everyone at Cainer.com, the entire UK including Her Majesty, Grateful Dead Merchandising, Netstep.net, Luminary Publishing, Smitty's Ranch, Alder Hill Farm, Michael Moore, Capen, Gage, Bliss and Scudder, Sequoia Laboratories of Sacramento, dad, Dana, and last but not least, the folks at the NYC Deli in San Pedro, Spain who put a 'reserved' sign on the little table near the electrical outlet -- we wish you happy holidays, peace of mind, and a safe and sane new year.

To those whose friends, family and loved ones are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, we send them and you our prayers for their safe return at the earliest possible moment.


Yours truly,

Eric Francis
Paris, Dec. 24, 2004

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*For details about scheduling, please see our Terms of Service document: http://planetwaves.net/tos/



Happy Birthday, Capricorn!

It must come as a great relief when the Sun enters your sign, and this year the moment arrives with what -- by every indication -- should be a wave of progress, particularly in your financial affairs. I see you making great strides to resolve a long-standing situation involving the relationships between who you are, what you do and the money you earn.

This has been made none too difficult by the long transit of Neptune through your 2nd solar house, Aquarius, which has gone on since 1998. This transit has served, on the one hand, to cloud your judgments about self-worth, at the same time it has bestowed a number of self-sacrificing tendencies. It will not be until Chiron arrives in Aquarius in late winter that you get a look at just what you've been through during these years, and begin a process of complete personal reassessment. Have you been too generous? Have you not asked for enough? Have you found a true balance between giving and receiving? Are you giving yourself away? Do you possess true self-respect? These are the questions that Chiron's presence will be instigating, and good questions they are.

While it may seem that you've been involved with such issues during the three years Chiron has been in your birth sign, I would propose that events and developments have been more hot than cool; more chaotic than orderly; more challenging than enlightening; and thus, the distance and objectivity required for sizing up your situation and making up your mind have not been available. But the many experiences you've collected and endured in recent years will offer you information and evidence of what you need, and of what you need to do in the future.

It's particularly important that you have genuinely clear ideas about the meaning of self-interest and the meaning of group interest (be it of family or other situations) because opportunities for partnership are likely to be presented to you. In any partnership, it's vitally necessary to know and understand everyone's motives, particularly your own. If you have struggled with fear of commitment, you will have more than enough opportunities presented by the transit of your ruling planet Saturn through your 8th solar house, Leo, to face up to those insecurities. People will be insisting on clear arrangements, and you will know at the depths of your being that the only real relationship is a solid one based on an honest understanding of everyone's intentions.

Therefore, this is the time to be exceptionally honest with yourself about what drives you forward, and to stand in that honesty all the time. You will get no points with anyone for concealing what you want, what you need, and what you really have to offer. Likewise, hiding your weaknesses and fears will, as well, only serve to set you back, in a time when you are poised to make great progress and lay solid foundations for the future.

None of this is news to you, and I suspect you've been brewing such concerns for quite q while. Now, they finally come into focus. Conditions that have been building for a long time often take a while to work out, even as aspects of our lives improve. Change of any kind opens the door to a touch of chaos that must be negotiated carefully. No matter how good things may get in the coming months, make sure you take nothing for granted. Save for rainy days, and continue to hold people and their concerns as equal to your own whenever possible. You will only know that you're truly abundant by what you have to share.


Planet Waves Weekly for Friday, Dec. 24, 2004
By ERIC FRANCIS
(Weekly Horoscope #538)

Aries (March 20-April 19)
The larger plan is suddenly coming into focus, and as often happens around this time of year, you can actually make contact with your motivation and ambition. You have an opportunity open to you at this moment, a chance to keep two seemingly different sets of priorities in order: your professional goals and your spiritual ones. These are not always so easy to reconcile, particularly in the Land of Opportunity and the Almighty Dollar. But much of the problem begins simply when we forget what's important to us. Recent months have given you many opportunities to remember. Just keep remembering.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
You may feel like you're in strange territory, but if that's true, you have plenty of support while you're there. The opposite of old is new, and for all the energy you've put into resolving the past and setting yourself free, you now get the reward of an entirely changed outlook. What you go through the next few weeks is evidence of how much the world can change when you change your mind. Yet if that's true, prepare for world after world to arise before your eyes, because that's how fast the inner changes are dawning. It's really as if you're being born again every hour.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
Mercury's recent change to direct motion has come with its usual revelations -- or I should say, with its unusual revelations. You've somehow been blessed with a view from the outside of your own life, and though you may not like all you see, I trust that you're far more at peace with yourself for acknowledging the possibilities. In fact, every person does contain every potential, and you cannot deny this. Yet this is another way of saying you have permission to become who you need to be, by your own choice and not because someone else says you have to.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
The Sun, now in your opposite sign Capricorn, concludes a long journey through the interior of your consciousness. While this kind of inner exploration is quite natural for a Cancerian, there are those times when you really do need to get yourself up on dry land, and this is one of them. The approaching Full Moon in your birth sign will demonstrate, more clearly than any recent aspects, that you do have a choice in what you do, and a voice in how you feel. All you need to do is make decisions and speak up for yourself -- true, easier written in a horoscope than done in real life, but all you need is a little faith.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
There are chances you're willing to take, and there are those you'd rather avoid. And then come those times when you find yourself acting in unusual ways, or reaching surprising conclusions about what you want. Clearly, it's time for an unusual adventure, something that pushes your sense of what is possible, and lets you test out your new ideas about who you are. You are beginning to understand that freedom is more than potential, and that potential means very little if you don't act on it. Remember, what you're now discovering is something you've always had in you.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
It was Bob Dylan who said he wanted to find out what price you have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice. Apparently you have not paid it, but you can get out of going through them all three times if you remember that, when given an opportunity, it is generally a limited-time offer. For some reason, you have the incentive to pounce on an opportunity, which in your somewhat careful approach to life may feel like an ambush. It's really no such thing; it's actually an easy opening, and what you feel like you're taking is really being given to you freely.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
There seem to be so few times lately when you've been actually free to be yourself, which may have something to do with having no concept of who that self is. Now, thanks to some form of writing -- emails, diary or letters -- you can make contact with that self in a way that feels safe and secure. The next step is materializing this as face-to-face contact and communication. Invite someone you've been corresponding with over for a meal, or take a trip together and continue the conversation in person. It will go to a whole new level, and the words you speak will pleasantly surprise you.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
Mars, now toward the end of its journey through your sign, is encouraging you to be scrupulously honest. You know how possible it is for you to get away with anything, which is in part a measure of your talent, and in part a measure of the immeasurable trust that people have in you. It's not easy having your integrity be on the line each and every day, but that's the fact of your life. To the conscious, power and privilege come with a cost, which is being real at every moment as an act of will. You've done this before, and you know how good it feels. Set the example and others will catch on.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
You know that love has no bounds. Yet in this world, we have to live with all kinds of containers, limits, definitions and rules. Often, those rules make us hold back. I suggest you let those go for a while, and express how you feel to anyone to whom you have something to say. Don't worry whose husband or wife is standing there, or what your relationship is: your feelings are pure, and your heart is right. No, you've never been one who is afraid to express yourself, but I suggest you take it to a new depth. The truth of the matter is that if we're not free to love, we're not free to do anything.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
There have been so many circumstances taxing your energy and patience lately, and making you wonder what is real in this world. The Sun's ingress into your sign is the best sign you could hope for that the turning point has finally come. While there are many improvements that, one year from today, you will be thankful for, short-term developments will give you a boost of confidence. In fact you're realizing not just how much you've changed, but rather how much you appreciate who these endless tests and trials have taught you to be.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
You are such a practical dreamer. How about dancing with a few irrational, impractical dreams? While this may not be so easy, it will be well worth the effort. It's not possible to find your way into the future you want to create using logic alone. Yes, some things must happen in a certain order, but in the regions of thought where ideas become reality, the ideas must come first, and you need to let those ideas fly out from wherever you keep them. Though you may not believe it today, you will learn in the coming weeks that visioning is the most dependable -- and safest -- way to create the future you want.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
Life has been a real trip across the edge these past few weeks of Mercury retrograde. Because Mercury is the planet that represents partners, loved ones and other important people in your life, things can be a bit tense or unpredictable under this astrology, and people seem to change their minds as fast as you can make up yours. However, over the past few days, things have begun to sort themselves out. As ever, you've landed on this side of the retrograde in a place you barely recognize, but which is inviting you to look around, explore, and make up a few new ambitions for yourself.


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Planet Waves for Friday, Dec. 24, 2004

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