Note to Readers: On Thursday, planetary heavyweight Saturn left the sign of Virgo and entered Libra. The theme of 'getting real' in our relationships is a hallmark of this transition, and we're running with that further than most astrology sites would dare. That isn't all that hard to do, given the state of authenticity and balance in most intimate relationships -- so don't get too nervous. We have an opportunity to get excited about the growth Saturn is urging us toward, but we have some cultural blind spots to examine along the way, as you'll see in this issue. Also of note: the Sun just left Cancer, but the fantastic Cancer Birthday Audio Report is still available below. As always, a subscription to Astrology News will bring full versions of our insightful essays to your inbox every week, along with horoscopes for all 12 signs. Explore with us a bit deeper through a discounted six-month subscription for $34.95 (normally $44.95) or a free one-month trial subscription.
Let's Get Real: Saturn in Libra
Dear Fellow Traveler:
Have you ever caught yourself or someone you care about describing this scenario: when you're in a relationship you have to put your authentic life agenda aside, and be the 'relationship you', until you can't stand it any more and you get out of the relationship so you can go back to being the 'real you' for a while? This way you can 'focus on yourself' and be creative and do the things you love; which works until you want a relationship again, for sex or companionship or both, but to get there you have to lose yourself and sacrifice what you consider the most important.
There are lots of versions of this scenario, which I call a split-self or hemisphere effect. The two sides of the brain act like different people with different needs and often it seems that both sides can't get their needs met at once, much less maintain a steady conversation. Another example is having intimate friendships with people, but after a while wanting to be closer than those permit, so you find a 'relationship'; then the other friendships, even if not directly sexual, must end once you're in a relationship.
Inside the relationship, you start to feel confined and want your other contacts, but various insecurities or the rules of appropriateness (yours or those of your partner) seem to prohibit that. Then you feel the limitations, and needing to deal with them, believe you have to sacrifice the relationship in order to have your more 'normal friendships'.
I am not suggesting that all relationships have this quality, though the world makes a compelling case that many of them do. Many have noted that monogamy (or what I will call unconscious monogamy) can be an isolating way of life, presuming not just sexual fidelity but often a kind of mental, emotional and social fidelity. Often this is born of paranoia as much as it is from a desire for togetherness. And, to be sure, it takes confidence and courage to go beyond this style of encounter.
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The Big Smear
By Judith Gayle |
Political Waves
In 2003, before becoming either a senator or head of the short-lived Air America, Al Franken published a book called
Lies And the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right. His courage was astounding, considering the year and the political climate. Franken earned the ire of the right, particularly O'Reilly and Hannity at FOX News and ideologues led by Rush Limbaugh. At the time, many people were unfamiliar with the dynamics of innuendo, slander and outright lies legitimized by those in power. Seven years later, Al Franken has proved to be as courageous a legislator as he was a political commentator. I still can't watch FOX without thinking, "Lies and lying liars." Unfortunately, FOX continues to justify Al's early warnings.
This week, FOX News played a
short clip of comments from a recent speech to an NAACP gathering by Shirley Sherrod, a Department of Agriculture employee. Ms. Sherrod spoke of her feelings in 1986 at being asked to help a white farmer while so many black farmers were being ignored. Sherrod's father had been murdered by a white farmer when she was a child. Her speech traced her personal journey through the maze of racism to the realization that it was not race, but the moneyed elite that created inequities. In her moving address, she made a case for classism.
FOX cherry-picked fewer than three minutes of commentary from Sherrod's forty-minute speech, taking remarks out of context and labeling them [overt racism] against white folk. The NAACP reacted with knee-jerk censure, prompting Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to demand Sherrod's resignation. The White House quickly backed Vilsack, then retreated when the NAACP reversed its position following CNN's prompt coverage of Sherrod's entire speech. When the white
farmer and his wife -- the subjects of the 1986 incident -- called the FOX story hogwash, it became apparent that we'd all been had yet again.
The right has made an art form of distortion. They're past masters at selecting some factoid, twisting it into a pretzel of accusation and moral platitude, and pushing it down our throats whole and unexamined. They did so with weapons of mass destruction, with government spying on U.S. citizens, with torture. They practice the art of deception daily. Their leadership tackles the big, faux issues -- 'bankrupt' Social Security, death panels for grandma, the return of the Black Panthers, etc. -- while their footsoldiers muckrake. With nothing to lose, they proclaim everything a win. They will throw anything at the Democrats that might stick. They will push any button, frighten any citizen, or stain the name of anyone in order to spread doubt and disenchantment.
The Sherrod clip originally appeared on Andrew Breitbart's radical-right website, Biggovernment.com, which was also the source of the 2009 ACORN 'sting' video. The ACORN bit of theatre featured an outlandishly dressed 'pimp and prostitute' supposedly receiving from ACORN helpful hints for tax avoidance, human smuggling and child prostitution. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) was an umbrella NGO dedicated to neighborhood safety, voter registration, health care, affordable housing, and other lower and middle-class issues. With over 400,000 members and 1,200 neighborhood chapters, ACORN received 10% of its 25 million-dollar budget from federal funding. Sting videos from both coasts were heavily edited with a bias toward employees of color and looped to run on FOX.
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Cardinal T-Square Homecoming: Cancer Birthdays for 2010
Dear Fellow Traveler:
I've just finished the
2010 birthday report for Cancer and Cancer rising. I also recommend that people with the Cancer Moon listen to this report, as the Moon is the body that rules this sign.
The presentation includes an hour-plus astrology reading, and a 20-minute tarot reading. I cover, in detail, the cardinal T-square that is now taking shape in Aries, Libra and Capricorn. This is the aspect that is reshaping the world, and which is so profoundly affecting your sign. The interesting thing is that Cancer seems to be the 'missing sign' from this setup, though in this report I look at a mysterious point that is in early Cancer -- a slow-moving hypothetical planet called Kronos.
The cardinal T-square is acting like a set of conditioning forces, setting high goals for your professional aspirations (Jupiter and Uranus in Aries), your relationships (Pluto and a lunar eclipse in Capricorn) and changes to your home and security base (Saturn in Libra). All of these elements are working together to provide an environment where progress is inevitable. Having not just fallen off the astrological turnip truck, I also know how stressful this is for some of you less-acclimated to nonstop change.
Cancer, after all, is a vibe that likes things safe and solid, though now the forces of progress are all over your life.
It's therefore incumbent upon you to use them to your best advantage, rather than experience them as destructive forces -- and you do have this option. Here is where Kronos comes in. Think of this point as a super-Saturn, describing an inner growth process through which you recognize your authentic role in the world. One of the keywords for Kronos is “VIP.” It is about authoritative positions and expert status, in the words of Martha Lang-Wescott, suggesting that the time has come for you to put your knowledge to work, and to focus the self-respect you deserve for having gained that knowledge. Kronos entered Cancer in 2000-2001 and will be here for many years to come. It's a helpful influence I suggest you become familiar with.
Last week's eclipse in your birth sign is a reminder that you are at a true turning point in your life. And Chiron plus Neptune entering your sympathetic water sign Pisces represent wide expansion of your horizons.
I cover all of this in the 2010 Cancer birthday report. I suggest that Cancer rising also listen to this because these transits will affect you directly in the same ways they affect the Cancer Sun. And this sign being ruled by the Moon, those with their lunar placement here will benefit as well.
For those who are wondering how I can go into this kind of detail without having your natal chart, I
explain it in this link on the Cosmic Confidential website. While I have a gift for creating these kinds of reports, I am tapping into a property of astrology that allows me to create a more accurate report than the 'custom reports' that assemble many bits out of a database. This is an actual, complete reading of the astrology affecting the sign Cancer.
Our audio reports have received rave reviews from our clients, and are among the most successful products we've ever offered in Planet Waves history. For instant access to your 2010 Cancer report,
check this link. The cost is just $14.95, a fraction of what a computer-generated 'custom report' goes for. You will receive an audio link that you can play as many times as you like, and there is the option to download the whole thing so you can put it into iTunes or your iPod.
Please let me know how the report works for you. Wishing you the very best of love, luck and adventure rising to the challenges and opportunities of these transits,
Yours & truly,
Planet Waves 2010 Midyear Report is Ready
Dear Fellow Traveler:
The midyear audio report is ready. We're offering it to you for
$9.95 per sign here, with substantial discounts for ordering multiple signs. Originally planned at 10 minutes per sign, it came out to about 25 minutes per sign, with a 30 minute introduction included with each of the signs. This report will work for your Sun, Moon and rising signs -- and you can even scope out what's going on with your kids and significant others. The report covers outer planet transits, the cardinal T-square and the eclipses in Cancer and Capricorn. It's solid astrological work and I trust you will find it helpful.
Last week a reader asked how to work with the rising sign aspect of my reports, and I'll get to that in a moment.
As you know, we're in the midst of one of the most unusual alignments of our lifetimes. This is the cardinal T-square that is synonymous with 2012. At the heart of the matter is the square of Uranus and Pluto, the one that will make the Sixties look like a walk in the park. That square is within three degrees now, joined by Jupiter, Saturn and a pair of eclipses. All of this is lined up with the Aries Point, which is like a magnifying/focusing effect. Everyone is affected by this astrology no matter what their sign.
Some people are experiencing this as calm weather, and by the way, I don't suggest you worry about that. There are some individuals and some charts aligned harmoniously with the current process of rapid change. When you look back on these years you will be amazed at what you experienced, who you became and what you accomplished.
For others, there is quite a bit of unrest, turbulence, pressure and weirdness, and you may be wondering what is next. This report will be applicable to both perspectives, because they are two sides of the same process.
The audio introduction is about half an hour, then each sign gets about 25 minutes devoted to it. The report is now available to non-subscribers.
Click here to order.
I write Sun-sign horoscopes and detailed reports that work whether you know your natal chart or not -- that is my specialty.
Now for the reader question, which pertains to how (for example) the Aquarius birthday report relates to Aquarius rising; or how any one of the signs in the Midyear Report works for your rising sign.
The great Patric Walker, one of my spiritual mentors, once said of astrology: "It's all about the houses." He was a newspaper astrologer, so he meant the solar houses of a horoscope column.
He meant it for natal charts as well. It's possible to take a chart with an accurate ascendant (based on your birth time) and strip out all the planets and just read the house pattern -- that's how well houses work. So when I think through your astrology, about 51% of my energy goes into what house an influence (such as an eclipse) occurs in. For your Sun sign, I use the solar house system, which works beautifully. I also suggest you know your rising sign and pay as much attention to my interpretation for that sign as you do for your Sun sign. And as a Cancer rising Moon child, I pay attention to lunar energy all the time. So the better you know your chart, the more information you'll have available from my work -- and the better the value.
To find your rising sign, all you need is your birth time and a five-minute trip to Astro.com. If you don't feel like doing that, your Sun sign (also called your birth sign) will give you the information you're looking for.
Here is the
link to order your Midyear Report from Planet Waves (instant delivery).
You can also order by phone by calling Chelsea at (206) 567-4455. Thank you for doing your metaphysical shopping at Planet Waves.
Yours & truly,
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Weekly Horoscope for Friday, July 23, 2010, #825 - BY ERIC FRANCIS
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You may take a gentler approach to a relationship than your emotions are dictating. Current aspects suggest strongly that you may be feeling frustrated, hemmed in or overcommitted. You've tasted freedom and you want more. There is often the question of balancing that with what relationships seem to call for -- except for one thing: we don't have a ready-made model of coupling that encourages change, growth and exploration. Most of us need some grounding in our relationships, and anyone who is waking up and discovering who they are needs the flexibility to be an individual. I suggest you bring this issue to the forefront of your relationship rather than leaving it lurking in the background. You're not going to lose your imagination, your passion or your curiosity anytime soon, nor are you going to lose your desire to share love. In my view, anyway, you don't need to sacrifice one for the other.
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Aries Birthday Audio by Eric Francis is available. Check this link for more information.
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| | With the Sun entering your birth sign this week, you're likely to be feeling confident, though I would suggest you not let that verge into overconfident. The first will point the way forward; the second will lead you right back to doubt. Several situations in your life are developing rapidly and require your full focus. You cannot assume that something is going to 'just happen' or that 'things will work out'. What you can count on is that if you take one step at a time, and check your work at the appropriate moment, you will be able to guide events sufficiently to get a constructive result -- and maybe a lot better. Be mindful anywhere there is a system involved: a human system such as an organization; a technological system; or a thought system that influences the way you make decisions. Look for what you're doing right; hunt for flaws and fissures and repair them immediately. You may not get a second chance.
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Leo birthday audio is coming soon! If you want some Leo astrology sooner,
check out the Midyear Report.
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| | This weekend's Full Moon in the very Sagittarian sign Aquarius is a moment of transcendence for you. The prison gates of your mind -- that is, all those concepts that you drag around -- open up and you can step out into clear air and light. The point of doing this is so that you have space to observe the world rather than see it through your preconceived ideas, expectations or ideology. What may surprise you is your observation of how much your notions of the world were coloring or obscuring your actual view. You need to keep your perception clear and your mind open in these days and weeks, and keep them open. Life is holding out many unusual options and possibilities, and to explore them fully will require confidence that can only come with being honest. Borrowing from T.S. Eliot, you will know that's happened when you come back to the place you started and see it for the first time.
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Sagittarius birthday audio is coming in the autumn! If you want some Sagg audio
astrology sooner, check out the Midyear Report.
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