Ottawa, June 23, 2006

Dear Friend and Client:

Another edition of Planet Waves Weekly is done, the first of summer, capping off a very strange couple of weeks of astrology and the story of the world. Events move so fast now that it's difficult to remember what happened last week, and the astrology we went through during the past seven days was one of those months packed into a week.

The solstice chart gives a picture, in one image -- but the events unfolded one at a time, including the Sun opposing Pluto and the Galactic Core; the first Mars-Saturn conjunction in Leo in about three decades; the Sun squaring the degree of the forthcoming Sept. 22 eclipse, and squaring the lunar nodes, which had just changed signs; then the Sun entering Cancer and squaring the Aries Point.

It's difficult to think of what would constitute big news these days; I dread to do so. Since Sept. 11, we have an outrageous new standard -- but we did get more than the same old stuff this week. Marines charged with murder; an officer refusing to be deployed to Iraq; a nuclear missile game with North Korea; the CIA reading bank records; all this news about war, extremely costly in lives and in money. Money is life energy, as human time, ingenuity and devotion are required to create the stuff. The two days a week we all work for the government is all about life, and the use of life.

What exactly are these guys, you know, the cabal, dragging up from the dregs of the human subconscious? How will this whole drama play out? How will it end, and what is the next turning point?

When we look back, and realize that our leaders should have been dealing with the heating-up of the planet rather than killing people and piling up cash, what will we think? How will we feel when we realize it took us so long to get a grip on them?

As for young people: I wonder less about what kids will think when they're older, and more about what they think of us now. I wonder how people face one another, not admitting they care. It is true, I have friends whose hearts are too burdened to think much about the wider world, or to think in anything more than detached and cynical terms. We could even question how it is that the people who do care, manage to find the strength to do so.

I wonder how I do it sometimes. There were a couple of days this week I had to drag myself through life. If I wasn't a journalist, I wonder what I would be doing. Sometimes I think it would be great to not have to be hooked into the news cycle, and to have to watch the news and the astrology hour by hour, and to make it all so personal.

Then, I remember that tracking the news, the astrology AND making it personal is exactly my mission now, and I am grateful that I have the ability and the clarity of purpose to do it. The longer I work at this, the more I recognize that Planet Waves really does belong in the world, and that there is plenty of room to grow. I think we provide a creative island on the Internet where many people come to rest, to explore, or get charged up. But there is something else happening, and that is, I think, we're collectively developing another way to consider the events of the world, and our role within them.

THE problem with the news is that it leaves US out of the story. It does so by so blatantly lying, coming from an agenda that is not OUR agenda; and by just ignoring people. Some would say the news lacks meaning, it's impersonal, and it can be extremely depressing. I think that the main source of despair associated with the news, even the most insightful and progressive news, is that it leaves us lacking for a way to respond. In many ways, it deepens the breach between us and the world, because it seems to happen in its own world.

Associating the news with astrology is a way of bringing it down to Earth, and integrating it with our own life cycles. In one gesture, the cycles of history and our own personal cycles of growth are close to the same thing. We can shift awareness entirely to one side, at any time in the process. We can get as personal as we want, looking back through history, understanding our feelings, fears, and responses; we can consider our relationships. We can consider what we do in the world -- and admit what we must do, what we came here to do.

We can consider the world itself, but never coming unstuck from it, because its astrology is our astrology. The planetary patterns allow us to go deep into the moment, or to explore the long cycles of history with the help of a tool that grants something truly helpful: context.

For more than seven years ongoing, Planet Waves has worked to bring this context to you, and to develop a perspective that we hope is easier to grasp, and reaches more people with ideas that help us reflect on life. In the past two years, we've grown immeasurably. The Web site has strong, new voices, beautiful artwork and better archives, and if you explore the links off of the front page -- try it -- you will see many new services and features, any one of which cold make a satisfying Web page all its own.

Part of how we've been able to do this is because of your subscription fee. For three years, a bunch of you have been giving about a dollar a week, and this is what we've created. For comparison, I'm going to put a link at the bottom to what Planet Waves looked like shortly after we created the weekly service. Then click on the homepage today.

You made this possible. Yes, a lot of help also made it possible, devoted, talented people, many of whom work as volunteers or for minimal pay. Some of us work nearly around the clock, creating and maintaining systems, cleaning the corners, and developing new projects. I play a few different roles: mainly, front man and coordinator -- but beyond both, I am aware that I keep visioning the vision and, miraculously, it keeps happening.

I'd like to leave you with a few thoughts on where that vision is going, and I'd like to ask for your help making it happen. We set the stage for expansion into multiple media with the Eros Area, which includes four things that are in the future of Planet Waves. None are original inventions, but we plan to use them very original ways, and model other projects after them.

One is a discussion area, where we can meet from anywhere in the world. Two is an audio area, which we are working in tandem with a new site called http://planetwaves.FM -- which will have some of the same programming, but the archives all go into the Eros area. Another is a searchable database of many years of work -- my Sun sign horoscopes, 6,000 individual write ups that will be updated constantly. Last is a space for passionate art, the theme of which is self-acceptance. At Planet Waves, we say YES to sex. Yes, it's an option; yes to the option, and YES, it's your choice. YES.

Eros is not a destination or a product -- it's a seed for the future. It is a space to develop, where we will experiment and grow.

I would love for you to dream this dream with us. You know we are a little mob at Planet Waves that lacks nothing for ideas, creativity and energy. I am amazed every day at the strength of the people around me.

You are a reader who is daring to live in a way that aspires to your true purpose. The amazing thing about Planet Waves readers is how much you have to say, how closely you watch the world, and most of all, how much you care.

Let's build Planet Waves together. We have the perfect construction tools: a highly energetic readership, the vast majority of which is women; a passionate staff, willing to work smart, work hard, work together, and work creatively; and this space called the Internet, where we have a solid foundation. Oh, and the last ingredient is some extremely interesting times in which we're alive, times which call for us to be aware, take responsibility and fulfill our true purpose.

Now is the time. We're not passing this way again, but we are certainly here now. We know we're not going to fix the world by complaining, and we know we have to start with modest steps. One of those steps is creating media we can depend on. If you ask me, THE biggest problem in the world is that television creates "reality" -- the one we don't want. And WE need to create something else. A critter that feels, that recognizes beauty, that says YES to life and that's brave enough to take on real issues. Planet Waves is not a 'website' but rather a perspective on the world -- flexible, aware, with love and a sense of humor.

I'm here to ask you to do two things. Please upgrade your subscription to Gold Membership, which you can do for as much as you like, using one of the choices on the pull-down menu (upgrade, new Gold subscription, or Sustainer -- or, you can call). If you're not already a subscriber, please sign up.

Then, participate -- in our discussions, with feedback, by getting to know one another and weaving our community around the world, with ideas, by sharing our stuff with your friends, or by getting involved in our adventure.

If you've read this far, you're a devoted reader. Take this step with us.

I look forward to working with you.


Yours truly,

ERIC FRANCIS & the Planet Waves team:
http://ericfrancis.com/contact.html

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As We Were, January 2003 (if it doesn't work, keep trying)
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As We Are, June 2006
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