Monday Letter
The Coronation

So help him God, George W. Bush will take the presidential oath of office for the second time on Thursday at high noon in Washington DC. Those following the news are hearing bits and bobs of the story: $40 million will be spent on fanfare, parties and parades following the event; this, in a time of soaring national debts and deficits, deep concerns over security, a flailing war and widespread economic struggle. In an apparent attempt to economize, the impoverished city of Washington, DC has been forced to cough up $12 million of its Homeland Security funds to pay for protecting the festivities. Thousands of Americans plan to turn their backs on the presidential motorcade, as most other forms of protest communication have been banned for 'safety'.

Per plans, Bush will swear to uphold the Constitution and to protect America from its enemies, foreign and domestic, in an oath administered by an ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Then, according to the Lone Star Iconoclast, "Once the oath is taken, the military will render a 21-gun salute, the Army Herald Trumpets will play 'Ruffles and Flourishes' and the US Marine Band will launch into 'Hail to the Chief'. The president will then deliver his inaugural address." I have not seen the text, but I expect a lot of happytalk about spreading democracy. But if what we're seeing overseas is democracy in action, we had better hope for something else at home.

If we like real democracy, events of the coming four years will present many opportunities to exercise our 1st Amendment right to petition the government for the redress of grievances. For true patriots, this will be a treat. And maybe we'll even have the drive and energy to keep it up; there should be plenty to motivate us. The ingress of three centaur planets into new signs within one month -- an event so rare and unusual that slot machines in Reno laundromats have better jackpot odds -- will accelerate the historical process. Centaur energy breaks the box and is extremely challenging for people stuck in old reality frameworks. All the extremists who are busy bombing the living piss out of one another, and many others, in the name of God are definitely old-school types. They are not friends of progress. They are not friends of much at all.

Centaurs are progress; and they reach deep into the human level. Yet it will, I think, seem mysterious how much and how fast the social and political landscapes change in the coming weeks. There is a blast of awakening coming; then the centaurs (Chiron, Pholus and Nessus, the first three discovered and named) retrograde and retreat to their old signs, and things quiet down. We get to take stock of the lessons learned in late winter and spring. Then they return to their new signs, and the excitement and enlightenment begin again. Two thousand-five is a transition phase, but it's a transition in levels rather than just across horizontal time. The main thing that shifts is awareness.

I was corresponding with one of my astrology teachers this past weekend, an expert in classical interpretation methods, about the inauguration chart. I have deep reservations about publishing his comments to a general audience, and I also have different interpretations not just of the chart but also of what our calling must be, that is, of how we need to respond, in light of such a situation. But from the standpoint of traditional astrology, which by the way also says we can't do anything to change the course of 'fate', the picture is a bit grim, and you're likely to read about the symbolism elsewhere. When you do, please keep your mind open to other possibilities. Remember that reality is a work in progress. Remember that you get a vote. Remember that miracles happen every day.

Over the summer, I published a not-so-grim but deeply concerned essay series interpreting both the inauguration and election charts, links to which I will provide below.

It will take a little time, but we will soon discover the deeper qualities of the monster collectively known as "Bush." It is not Bush, George W. or George H.W., or Jebby or Prescott (George H.W.'s father, a senator and Skull and Bones member, who had, let's say politely, some interesting ideas about life). What we are about to encounter is the idea that these people represent; the collective for whom they are the (admittedly well-paid) spokesmen and actors and pawns. In essence, an idea takes the throne on Thursday. Not a person.

We have had clues, if we are looking for what that idea may be. But then clues are always the result of observation. The $60 billion per month trade deficit is one clue. That means that, despite the incredibly weak dollar (which makes our products cheap, and therefore theoretically appealing to foreign markets), America is still importing $60 billion more goods than it is exporting each month. (I often wonder if that figure factors in the merchandise we "export" to Iraq, which would make the deficit look better. Probably.) The tsunami of red ink is another: I read again and again that the United States went from a $2 trillion budget surplus to a $2 trillion deficit in just four years. Speaking of $2 trillion, that's the estimated (additional) debt load that would be incurred by the proposed privatization of Social Security, which currently runs at a surplus and will for the next decade or more if left alone.

Do you care about your kids, and your great-great-grandchildren? We are leaving them with the bill, and the mess: and for what? We are living like there's no tomorrow, but not having a very good time.

Up to $9 billion per month (that's nine thousand million dollars) is being spent to shoot, bomb and napalm Iraq, money not even included in the federal budget -- it is "supplemental." BushCo is about to go to Congress to seek yet another $100 billion, money which goes somewhere, that is, into someone's pockets. The whole original rationale for the war (weapons of mass destruction, Saddam's plans for conquering the universe, etc.) collapsed into the sand and was exposed as a bald lie, but we're still being told by BushCo and BlairCo that they did the right thing. Of course they did! What else could they possibly say? And why should they say something else, if half the people believe them?

Yet at this point, I must be the big-mouthed citizen-son and intervene with a logical question about all this debt: WHY?

Why are all the resources going to war and violence, and to the super rich (in the form of tax cuts) and not to simple, cheap social programs? Why so much death instead of life?

Why does it seem a war is being waged on the US economy from within its own borders? Why does it feel like the US economy, a 747 that flies pretty good, is being pointed at the nearest mountaintop?

I believe there is a reason. I am going to let the question stand for a while, and ask that you ponder it, and maybe to get back to me if you feel like it; just reply to this email and I'll see what you write. I ask this question with the prejudice or presumption that in politics and government, anyway, there are no accidents. Everything is so carefully planned, deliberated and drawn out so many years in advance that something like the most stunning national debts and deficits, concurrent with most the expensive wars in all of known history, combined with this bizarre plan to trash and trade for debt our most precious social program -- Social Security -- cannot possibly be an accident or a coincidence. There is an agenda. But what is that agenda, really?

One of the most intriguing and disturbing qualities of the inauguration chart is its 8th house. Sagittarius is on the cusp, and the house contains a rather hostile conjunction of Mars and Pluto, applying. It represents a developing situation. The 8th house is generally thought of as the place where we look for information about death, but it's also the place where we look for information about financial transactions with others. Mars and Pluto are the two ruling planets of Scorpio. Since the chart has Taurus rising, Scorpio is setting, on the 7th house cusp: the house that represents partners and enemies. (The 8th develops the themes of the 7th several steps further, to the level of contractual arrangements, exchanges, commitments and mergers with the partners we meet I the 7th). In the 8th, you can lose control, lose your name, lose your body, inherit someone's wealth, form a merger, make a child, incorporate, and so on. But there is always -- always -- someone else involved.

So we find these two rather intense, mysterious, powerful, and obsessive rulers of Scorpio in the 8th house, together, joining forces. They represent a partner or an enemy, or both. The violence of this imagery, the god of War and the lord of Death placed in the house of death, is obvious. Then, the whole business is magnified by the Great Attractor, which is right there in mid-Sagittarius. And the Sagittarius connection brings in foreigners, particularly with religious overtones (not news, but the intensity of this chart is certainly new and newsworthy). Yet the whole issue of debt has not been discussed astrologically in the context of this chart, that I have seen. Over the summer, I spent an afternoon talking with one of my wise clients in a Covent Garden coffee shop, taking notes as she spoke. The subject was trends and themes as we approach 2012, some of which you've read about in Bridge to the Core.

In that notebook, the words, "Debt as religion" are written. They are her words. I remember my sense of mild shock as I wrote them down.

Debt as religion? A religion of debt? What would that look like? Or rather, what does it look like?

It looks like a world so hopeless that people see no future at all; so they spend and expend and consume the future on things they don't even need in the present. They eat tomorrow's food today, taking no real satisfaction in the moment, and getting bloated. They spend their endowments instead of living on the interest; they cash in their 401K to go on vacation; they bake cookies out of their heirloom seed stocks; they poison the well, or sell the water rights and have a party with the money.

At the same time, the whole notion of sex and healthy exchange of sex (critical to the 8th house) becomes so alien under these conditions that it's as if all the creative/erotic energy we have is being bound up in debt, or shoved into debt, or put there because we're scared of creativity and fun. It is nearly impossible to relax under such circumstances; nearly impossible to let the energy and inspiration flow. Can you really make love when you owe everyone everything?

When the 8th house is full of passion, surrender, creation, reproduction, collaboration and partnership, there is prosperity. When it is filled with conflict, debt, chaos and death, there is suffering and loss. Most times we choose between the two. Life is never a smooth ride, but we do have some power to choose. (The 8th house in the first inauguration chart is quite impressive, featuring the Pluto, the Moon, Ceres and Chiron).  But we have more power the less debt we have. We have less power the more debt we have. These days, you graduate with college with school debt and credit card debt, and embark on your 20s to pay it off. Some American dream. When my father graduated college in 1965, he bought a two-family house and a new car one year later. And he was a school teacher, not a stock broker.

Much of our economy, working at its best, is financed on debt. Consumer spending, for example, incurs vast debt, at what should be called usurious interest rates -- the lending of money at an exorbitant (and what are held, by the Bible anyway, to be illegal) price. Foreign governments gamble on US business interests, financing the economy and hoping to make a buck, or a billion. We go into debt as a society as a result. Without those investments, we're pretty much screwed. And when there is debt, he who controls interest rates controls those who owe him the principle.

These are high times for people addicted to powerlessness. Of course, being powerless makes some people feel "safe." They don't have to do anything, because they "can't."

The US national debt is an interesting bird. In 1868, an amendment was made to the federal Constitution -- the 14th. It has some very cool language, on which we all depend every day. In part, the 14th holds that no state shall "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." This is part of our social contract. It is a very 8th house statement, about life and property, and about the proper use of power by the government. This particular provision is being violated every minute of the day in the treatment of "detainiees" and many other provisions of the PATRIOT Act and its successor laws.

But at the end of the 14th amendment, something very strange is added on, having something to do with the then-recently-fought Civil War, but which still remains in the Constitution today. It says, "The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."

The validity of the public debt shall not be questioned! In other words, it could be held as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, for example, for Congress to pass a law requiring the budget to be balanced.

So, in a sense, debt is part of our national religion. Particularly war debt. And money is a big, big theme in both the news and in the inauguration chart. Consider a 2nd house Gemini Moon, as appears at noon Thursday, about to oppose an 8th house Mars and Pluto. That does not seem too stable to me. What do you think? We see the actual results of that about nine months from now -- in October or so.

In the inauguration chart, Taurus is rising (it always is), so Venus is one significator for the new president (so, too, is the Sun in the 10th house). Where do we find Venus? In the 9th house, of foreign matters, and foreign countries. The president is abroad! (He is also rich; Venus in Capricorn says old money.) And in Capricorn, we have the image of the president not just as a foreigner or alien (placed in the 9th) but also as being directly involved with foreign governments; quite literally, part and parcel of them. Venus goes quite well in Capricorn. She doesn't take her shoes off at the beach, but her investments add up. Saturn, the ruler of Capricorn and the planets located there, tells us more. Saturn is retrograde in Cancer. Cancer is the sign of nurturing. This placement feels more like taking than it does like giving.

Conjunct Mercury, whoever Venus represents is smooth talking and politically tenable. This person, our leader, makes a plausible case that seems reasonable to many; reassuring in that patronizing way to very scared people; even responsible, despite every indication to the contrary. Scared people are always more likely to believe lies than those who have some freedom and tranquility. Scared people need to believe lies; content people do not. The founding fathers knew this, when they said that democracy can only function in a state of relative peace and stability. This is why an election in Iraq is a farce. There is no democracy at the point of the gun. Whatever the PR team may call it, that is tyranny.

In part due to the intensity of that 8th house, I don't expect Bush to finish his second term. The Sun-Chiron conjunction does not bode well in this respect, either. And I believe there is a plot brewing inside the administration. The 8th is a lot about secrets, and something is definitely brewing there. And Nessus is in the last degree of Capricorn, which in the Sabian symbol system is about the men who rule the world.

Astrologers have been writing predictions of a doomed Bush presidency for years, but I think their predictions have been premature, and most don't take into account what would happen next (a lot would happen next). I don't expect him to be replaced by anyone better. Meanwhile, I think we should consider ourselves extremely fortunate if we have a functioning economy in four years. And I'll personally be very grateful if, four years from today, we have passed the time without a major nuclear incident. I say to you today: we will be grateful, more grateful than we are at our most aware today, to be together with our families, and to be safe in our homes.

At this point, we need a little reality check. On this day, in your opinion, whatever your current political stripes (quite a few zebras will soon be rearranging their patterns, and we'll soon be surprised to find anyone who claims to have voted for Bush) how far would be too far? How egregious would the government's conduct need to be before you became concerned enough to do something? What would you personally put up with?

Friends, loved ones and citizens of the world: we have a debt to ourselves and our children and our communities. If we listen, we will hear the calling. If we feel, we will respond. We must do our dharma and act as if to hold the world together.

Rise up!

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"Let the Games Begin" by Eric Francis
http://www.chronogram.com/issue/2004/08/backbone/planetwaves/

"Bush for President" by Eric Francis
http://www.chronogram.com/issue/2004/09/backbone/planetwaves/

Bush Inauguration Chart
http://planetwavesweekly.com/twdco99~/open/inauguration05_io.html

"Eve of the Revolution" by Eric Francis
http://planetwaves.info/revolution.html

Information on cost of Iraq war
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aairaqwarcost.htm

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Planet Waves Monthly for January 2005

By ERIC FRANCIS

Release of this horoscope was delayed until Bridge to the Core was completed. For more information about that, please see: http://planetwaves.net/2005horoscope.html. This is the "magazine edition" of the annual. It is shorter, and formed the basis for Bridge to the Core. In the end, it worked out to be a lot less of a basis than I thought, as the Bridge horoscopes represent an entirely new look at the charts, and were not written with a space constraint. Long Live the Internet. These horoscopes were written from Pisces to Aries. Bridge to the Core were written Aries to Pisces.

Aries (March 20-April 19)
    The real work, and thus the real gain, of these four seasons involves sorting out what is important to you and what is not. The astrological key is Mars retrograde in Taurus, which happens in the fall, but which will be offering its messages throughout the year, particularly as the Sun crosses Taurus this spring.
    What's important to you is likely to exist in a state of constant flux, particularly as your level of interaction with your community -- 'community' being a word that appears a lot in this annual horoscope -- goes to several new levels. There comes a time, not so far in the future, when you see that you are being asked to offer something to the world; then, you're likely to spend a lot of time investigating whether you have that particular quality to offer. You may wonder whether anyone needs you, or worse, whether they want what you have to give.
    Try not to spend too much time convincing yourself. Between certainty and doubt is a space of acknowledging what is so. In any given moment, with a moment's thought, this is never particularly difficult to see. In such times you may notice that who you are and where you are add up to why you are there.
    And at any moment, you have the prerogative to look around you and ask: what am I called upon to do right now? The answer will be obvious.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
    You're someone to whom it all makes sense in the end. But now you are at a beginning, and it would be very nice if things made more sense at this phase of the game. If we're talking about 2005, there is a reassessment that comes at the end of the year, in the form of Mars retrograde in your sign. Then, a few weeks later, a Venus retrograde spans from Aquarius back to Capricorn. Once again you're being pushed beyond your need for love and comfort, to draw your safety from within, and to take nothing for granted.
    There's a school of thought that says it's better to meet the day when the day arrives; but astrology's gift of foresight would be wasted, could we not use it to plan a growth agenda. The question is, how well are you able to bring people into your life who can fully identify with your need to be so independent, but still be in a relationship? The theme in past seasons has been about you seeing other people's lives for what they are; to be sure, it's more difficult to convince yourself that your experience matters to anyone else.
    You need to be honest with people now, so that once you notice what your real needs are, nobody has any power over you that might prevent you from meeting them. If you never give another person power over your safety or security, you will see what it means to relate to others on equal terms.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
    Gemini's child has had many opportunities to see herself as the passive recipient of experience, the current phase of your life is a study in cause and effect: with you in the starring role, as the cause. Those afraid of getting blamed for other people's problems may cower from this. I suggest you celebrate, because the implication is that, by choosing between obvious alternatives, you can actually get a vote in your destiny.
    You do not need permission, or an invitation, to co-create your life. You merely need to engage in a dialog. This goes for personal interactions, as well as professional.
    I can barely begin to describe the kinds of opportunities that are open to you now. If you don't see them, I assure you, you are looking too low on the food chain, or are still thinking about your life in terms a high school guidance counselor would understand. If you're going to meet your highest aspirations, you need a very high degree of freedom. I suggest you put this tops on your agenda when considering the right profession, a question that is so central to your life.
    Freedom means freedom with time, with expression, with defining your mission, and the freedom of whom you associate with. In short, you must live at the center of a life that allows you to change, sooner rather than later; with ease, rather than with complication.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
    You have experienced the danger, the beauty and ultimately the power of partnership. And no matter how important another person may be to you, you've learned to remember who you are despite this fact.
    Remember that it's never easy for a water sign person to truly feel good about him or herself because you feel so much, so deeply, and on this plane of reality, there are so many reasons for doubt. But even you would agree that one of your greatest personal assets is determination, and you seem only the stronger for having faced your fears and weaknesses so directly.
    Chiron transiting Aquarius will show you just how close to the edge you've been for so long, and provide a better map of the territory. It's true that so much seems to hang by a thread, and that the lines between success and failure, happiness and sadness, or life and death, can seem awfully fine. The thing is, they actually do exist. There really is not a gray area possible in these matters -- and where there appears to be one, it's best to stand back, because perhaps the most critical theme of 2005 is that ambiguity is not an option.
    Based on all your new information about yourself, and the confidence you have gained from having your determination tested over and over, you'll be faced with a series of decisions on which so much seems to hinge. It does, and that's okay; it's so rare in this lifetime that we get into territory where everything really does matter.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
    It's true that you know your limits. And in the coming seasons, you're going to learn a lot about going past them. Ask any athlete: what are our limits for, except to exceed?
    In a similar way, most people don't know how challenging it is for you to fit into this world. You are very good at warming the people around you up, thawing some of the social ice, and spreading your good vibes. But to actually be part of a community that you can relate to is, inwardly, a challenge of which you rarely speak.
    During the coming 12 months, both Saturn and Chiron will be taking up starring roles in your life. Saturn's return to Leo for the first time in nearly three decades represents you coming to terms with your talents, your value and your need for freedom.
    While Chiron's presence in your 7th house raises the stakes on your relationships -- they all become more prominent in your life, and far more compelling -- this transit bestows the gift of your becoming a master communicator who can bridge any barrier of language, intelligence or ideology.
As for Saturn: it was Jesus who said that unless we become like little kids, we can't attain enlightenment. I would add a corollary. It is only when we become mature adults that we can see and feel the world from the heart-space of a child. This, in the end, will be Saturn's gift to you.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
    Virgo is the original sensitive instrument of the zodiac, the one that can process an ocean of data on next to no electrical current; the one that moves a mountain range with an idea; the one whose logic defies science, then creates new science (very quietly). But creativity? That is, perhaps, a sensitive spot for you.
    I'm here to prepare you for a series of not-so-gradual adjustments designed by the cosmic engineers to get your creative fires ripping. For complex reasons, Leo and Aquarius are the two most alien energies to you, and this is where the energy moves. You are not quite self-centered enough to understand how Leo processes reality; you are not quite enough of a group thinker to grok the world from the viewpoint of Aquarius.
    To the contrary: you have a tendency to isolate even from yourself (not very Leo) and to need to stand alone most of the time (not very Aquarius). Gradually, I see you getting pushed so far into your own world that you pop out the other side: where the rest of us live. And I see you yearning for intellectual challenges that are so complex and urgent that there's no way you could take them up alone.
    Meanwhile, in that aspect of your life once known as romantic, the only situations worth pursuing are the ones that lovingly shock you to your senses so thoroughly that you know you're never going back anyplace else. Why bother?

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
    Free yourself from the habit of thinking your luck has run out once something really good has happened. No, I'm not looking at someone else's charts. I know that many astrologers promised all kinds of sweetness and starlight regarding last year's Venus transit of the Sun, which turned out, actually, to be quite turbulent.
    But the transit, if nothing else, pointed to truly long-term developments. Speaking of which, how has your reputation-building work been coming? Have you distributed a box of 500 business cards, one at a time? I suggest you set this as a goal for before the first day of spring. Get the cards printed, and get used to saying, "Hello, my name is______, and I do_______."
    Don't expect the astrology to do the work; do the work of the astrology. This is always true where the 10th house is concerned, particularly when Saturn is in the picture. You will need the contacts you make in this process, and they need you. You've been setting about accomplishing something that is, in the end, highly specialized, so the right partners and associates are not a matter of compromise.
    To the extent that you've felt absolutely out of your element, I think that the series of changes beginning in late winter will gradually bring you back in to a world you know. Just remember that alchemy is a two-way street. You have your very meaningful effect on the world, and it has its on you.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
    Could it be that you're going to take all your hard-won gains of the past God-knows how many seasons and gamble them on something that goes against all your ideas about security, emotional comfort and keeping the world reasonably predictable? Or could it be that beneath the steel plate of those values, down in your soul where it really matters, you honor freedom above all else?
    Just remember that you have nothing to prove. You don't need to make decisions just to establish that you're free, though you may be inclined to do just that. Resist the temptation. The most serious challenges and most pressing decisions come at the end of the year, and you will want to keep your options open for then.
    Count on the people you are now close to getting much closer. Not everyone in this life gets to experience the pleasure of hand-in-glove relationships; fewer still appreciate them for what they are. Think of the bonding that forms between trapeze artists, actors or technicians working on a complex project for years. Personal differences set themselves aside; it's understood that the project will rise or fall on cooperation.
    You will learn to trust people this year, but the really beautiful thing is that you'll learn to trust yourself like you never have before. There is no telling at the beginning of this adventure the form that things will take at the end; this is for you to decide in those moments when life truly matters the most.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
    You've made an art form out of not knowing for sure. In a universe of so many possibilities, there's little use nailing down reality to one or two generalities that are going to change in 15 minutes. However, that psychic climate pattern is itself about to change. Remember that the symbol of Sagittarius is an arrow: a sharp, straight object that flies through the air toward a specific goal or objective.
    There's nothing vague about that. It may seem odd when, after dealing with so much fluff and fuzz, you're standing on the solid ground of right and wrong, seeing the world in the high-contrast light of differences that really matter.
    Part of why they matter so much is due to your standing in the community. You have a visible role to play, and you impact many people beyond your immediate frame of reference. So you simply cannot afford uncertainty or to take morally shaky positions. You also cannot afford to make up the rules as you go. And you know that dogma turns off anyone with a shred of intelligence. So there must be something else that guides you.
    Let it be the wisdom of experience; let it be data. Take a scientific approach and base your assessments on what you can see, smell, measure and otherwise sense. These are always subject to interpretation, and you're good at that. But for now, cosmic critter that you are, you must ground your sense of reality in the physical world of here and now -- where it is.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
    There's been little relief from the tests and growth opportunities of the past two or three years. Could you have endured more? We had better not ask. But could you have had more opportunity to stretch your entire being into a whole new inner cosmos? I doubt it. You've been under the simultaneous influence of Chiron in your sign and Saturn in your opposite sign, which has meant clearing out and scrubbing down to the bare walls every aspect of your identity and your life. Every relationship has either transformed or ended; long ago, you came to the recognition that the one compromise you could not make would be to play charades with your integrity.
    It's never especially easy, having decided that you deserve a better situation, to put that idea out to people for the first time. Going from amateur to professional is one way to describe the changes you're about to encounter. Most people fear they will lose their souls in the process. We both know you face no such possibility.
    Even as you've noticed that the work of living was becoming a little less intense, the reality of your success began to dawn on you in the form of more fulfilling work and more stable relationships. In truth, you cannot always be the strong one, or the one who sets the standard for dedication and stability. It's too much work, and robs you of being in the position to receive -- something you very much deserve, and something you'll learn to do.
 
Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
    The Lord of Waters is visiting the sign of the Water Bearer. In the coming weeks, Neptune reaches the exact midpoint of his 5,118-day journey across the terrain of your soul, which began in early 1998. To put it mildly, this has been an odyssey; for much of the world, it has felt like drifting out into nowhere and discovering that's exactly where we are.
    For Aquarius, it has been about filling that big jug you're always depicted holding. There have, as well, been nearly unbearable tests of your patience and endurance; everything you thought you knew about yourself has somehow been taken away. You've had to learn how to breathe under water when really you would much prefer air. But there can be no denying that your awareness of the spiritual world has been enhanced enormously. Though it defies all logic, the unseen world is now your first home.
    Yet you can never have confidence in what you know if you haven't subjected it to practical tests, put it to work in your relationships, and most important, applied it to your community. You've learned far more than you think, but you've also reached the time when you can no longer keep knowledge for its own sake. The test of your true genius will be applying what you have gained to every situation in your life, finding evermore intelligent ways of making contact and solving the problem of alienation -- a problem you know about all too well.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
    Pisces is willing to be what the world needs him or her to be. While I recommend maintaining certain limits here, I also call upon you to take this time as an opportunity -- the most awesome one ever to reinvent yourself. Yet the question is, into what, and why. No Pisces can be happy merely being self-serving, because you are too intimately connected with the whole cosmos. Fortunately, it's generally true that what helps you helps everyone.
    You have options, but they are subtle. With Neptune lurking silently in your solar 12th house for the past six years, you've had to deal with more than your share of uncertainty. It's as if your dreams have been in a fog, and your identity held in an idea. But now you've reached a turning point, and as Chiron joins Neptune in Aquarius, everything you were missing suddenly comes into focus.
    For now, the most effective course of action is to orient on the most practical matters of your work, your health and your mode of service. Practice your particular craft as if it truly mattered. Given the fact that you seem to have unlimited energy and the mysterious ability to conjure resources at will, look for the connections to your highest and deepest calling; look for where the world truly needs you; and believe it's true. Then watch what develops.
    In times of ailing hope in the world, it's vital to nurture faith. In each new situation, faith is an act of divinely inspired invention, shared as the gift that increases in being given away. So don't just have faith; give faith.

Planet Waves is a subscription service. Please invite your friends to subscribe by visiting this link: http://planetwavesweekly.com/sales/home.html. Subscriptions include free access to Bridge to the Core, the Planet Waves annual edition for 2005.

Planet Waves for Monday, Jan. 17, 2005, with the "magazine edition" of the 2005 annual horoscope.

Published by Planet Waves, Inc. of  Vashon Island, WA. Written in Paris, Ile de France, 75005.

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