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| Three Visions for Peace Dear Fellow Traveler: Everyone seems a little edgy these days, or almost everyone. Can you blame us? The world might end, you know, if things get out of hand in the Middle East. I am so pissed off. I just finally get my bookshelves straightened out, and my supply of kitchen towels all washed and folded in a neat pile on my counter just like I like them, and the freaking world might end. It is so not fair. And all for what? Oh, cheap gas! Last night I invested $37 in a tank of the stuff for my car. I didn't say 18-wheel truck, I said car. Fortunately I only have to do this about twice a month. When I went into the convenience store, since it was after dark, I had to leave my credit card, my gold watch and my hiking boots as collateral. But the cashier was like yeah, it's bullshit. The gas you just bought comes from South America. I love how well informed people are these days. Well, anyway we are in a period of high anxiety, high awareness, high altitude or high stress. One or more of the above. The mere fact of all the Pisces energy seems to have people swimming or drowning in their feelings. As of Friday, Sun, Mercury, Uranus, Pallas Athene and Hopi are all in Pisces. Mercury alone would be enough to have this effect. The psychic energy -- or pressure, depending on how you experience it -- is building, and it will most likely continue to build with the Virgo Full Moon over the next few days, a lunation which may be somewhat emotionally itchy because there will be a temptation to make all that emotional material mental. You will know this is happening if your wires are getting hot. Running emotional energy through mental channels has the feeling of too much, of overwhelm, of depression, of frustration. It is the sense of trying to make sense of the senseless. Many people are struggling right now: flaking, freaking, tweaking, sneaking or not so pleasantly peaking. There are others who are on solid ground, the organically stable and well-nourished types. There are those who have trained for this moment or who are simply naturally prepared, who are able to help by working in support of their immediate circle of friends and family. Others are helping in world service: peace activists working around the clock, for example, or the people babysitting their kids and cooking their meals, and there are lots and lots of those. If you are on the peace brigade and you're reading this, thank you. A thousand times. Not everyone can do what you are doing. Many people want to. But, as I keep saying, as a way of offering permission, some people are having a really hard time right now. If you are struggling in any way, please ask for help. Please do what might not be so easy for you and reach across to someone who can assist you, help nourish you, support you, give you a break from the kids, or whatever you might need. Including the person in the next cubicle, or your boss, or some friendly person nearby who just seems available. If you need and can pay for expert help -- a therapist, massage therapist, a homeopath, whatever -- then surely do; it's worth the investment. If you can't pay, ask for help, and open up to receiving it, and see what happens. If you have been trained in a healing or support art but have not begun to use it, this is quite potentially your moment to put your skill to work. Everyone will benefit. A few more points of unsolicited advice from the Chiron department before I move onto my three visions for peace. If you are going to be assisting others in some capacity, you will probably need several pieces of equipment, or their equivalent. One is to remain as well-nourished as you can: food, rest, touch, companionship, whatever. Next is you will need some contact with more experienced people than yourself, people you can use for reality checks who understand and appreciate the role you feel called upon to serve in. Ask for help when you need it. Get other opinions. Know when you don't know and bounce questions off of people you respect. Perhaps it's time to talk to some of the people you respect on your e-lists, rather than just emailing them. Last is that it's very important to know when you cannot help another person. If you feel that you cannot, it's okay to say that. It is more noble than to attempt what is really not working for either of you, or to get caught in a negative spiral situation. You can only do your best. It is okay -- even vitally necessary at times -- to refer people on to others. Among the warning lights are situations in which you repeatedly feel frustrated or depleted. Those are different feelings than tired at the end of the day. An Evolutionary Threshold To me it is clear that the world is at a threshold of consciousness. We are here together. We are not here alone. I'm perceiving standing at the threshold of war as an opportunity for enlightenment. Any society always goes to war with at least a vague consensus of its population, or the mirage of one, and sometimes with many of its citizens in a wild, frenzied fervor. Leaders use many tricks to persuade and incite people to violence, always creating the illusion of an outside threat to mask the private interests that stand to profit by destabilizing or conquering another country. This is largely accomplished by hiding the injury that will be inflicted on ordinary people (as opposed to 'opposing' armies) of the target country. The damage we inflict is almost always ignored, or rationalized away. Honest journalism -- to give one example -- would currently be offering us long feature stories about the current state of Iraqi hospitals, interviewing their doctors and health ministers, and providing reports back to the rest of the world about what will happen if their health system is overwhelmed or destroyed. How is it that our 'Christian' leaders can express concerns about the politics and government of Iraq without expressing concerns about the living people on the ground, who would be under the bombs? The answer is very, very simple: offering that perspective would turn people against the plan to attack, and in droves. It would be seen as unjustifiable, immoral, vicious, unconscionable, or whatever you want to call it. It would be attacked as 'anti-American'. One cannot maintain murderous feelings and compassion in their heart at the same time. So those preparing for a rampage must abandon all sentiments of compassion. And they must persuade as many other people to do the same as possible. One of the lies we live with is that the will of the people can be ignored. But I have proof to the contrary. In time of war, the will of the people is always manipulated, silenced or somehow subverted. If the will of the people could be ignored, all that effort would not be necessary, now would it? We would not need to be blitzed with propaganda and poll results to make us think we're in favor of something, or that something is necessary. But bad things have been stopped in the past, and good things have been created. Any time the government is pressured to do or not do something, from give women the right to vote or end a war, it is always a vocal minority -- in other words, NOT a big majority -- that gets the job done. The Investment of Consciousness What I feel right now is that with our individual minds, we are choosing to join one collective or another: one which is willing to let this happen, and another which is not willing to let it happen. My sense is that, for some reason, some energetic or evolutionary reason, our choice of where to invest our consciousness right now is very important. Holding the vibration of compassion, of true concern and of doing what we can might feel like voting with one's conscience. This does not only have the potential to be helpful. It seems likely that that's what's going to tip the balance and carry us through this particular territory to a whole new place. The first time in modern history that people stop some kind of war before it happens will not be the last. Imagine if we were to discover that by holding the thought of peace, or expressing our moral opposition, or by coming to a peace rally, we could actually make THE difference? What fun! Those working for peace in the current world crisis have three distinct advantages in the current situation. One is that the mirage of a threat is looking mighty thin. Most people know that Saddam poses very little threat to the United States, and that in the event that such a potential becomes real, we can act then. Most of us are also fully aware of how bombing the Middle East can lead to an increase in terrorist attacks here, rather than helping avoid the possibility. If in theory the Muslim world is some kind of hornet's nest (which I seriously doubt) why would anyone want to kick it? Also working in our favor is Sept. 11. The modern United States, before Sept. 11, had never experienced an attack on its own soil. Our government has bombed numerous societies but our citizens have never known the direct horror of war. While the memory of Sept. 11 has been used successfully to whip up pro-war sentiment (does anyone remember the war against bin Laden that actually won us Afghanistan but left bin Laden roaming free??), Sept 11 was also a powerful initiation that it's extremely painful to be under falling bombs and falling buildings. Also plenty of people are fully aware of being manipulated by the media. I have heard the comment many times: Why when 90% of the population allegedly supports something do I not know one person who is in favor of it? Who exactly are they polling? Many people are experienced in visualization exercises. We could present a model for the creation of reality which demonstrates fully that we visualize reality into existence. It does not come into existence any other way. Therefore we must have a very clear sense of our visions. I want to suggest three possible visualizations to help defuse the potential for a bombing campaign on Iraq. First: Visualize the present time from the standpoint of the past and witness the fact that the war never happened. Or: See the future as consisting of 'time tunnels'. We can choose any tunnel. There is at least one that leads directly away from the prospect of war. Hold that possibility open. Hold the door open and point others toward it. Or: Witness a massive uprising of consciousness, activism and celebration of life that makes the war vibrationally and politically impossible. Dane Rudhyar Speaks This is offered by Jennifer Wilks Christian of the Planet Waves Vision List. In the book Occult Preparations for a New Age, 20th century astrological pioneer Dane Rudhyar stresses that through crises are born new beginnings; they summon new potentialities into existence. "He who is . . . definitely ready and intent upon entering the Path - the path of total transformation -- can expect to travel with suffering as his companion. He has deliberately entered a process of transition. He has placed himself 'out of gears' in order to be able to change to a higher gear; and the change is very rarely smooth, because, unlike a well-engineered car, each position of the gears resists change; instead of some kind of lubricant to facilitate the displacement, each gear is surrounded with a mass of particles opposing the shifting. Every transition between two states results in suffering." Of crises, he says that "all have this in common: they challenge in us the desire, the power of imagination, and the will to make a fresh start. . . . Will we stop actualizing our inherent potentialities of consciousness and personality unfoldment, defeated by circumstances? But these circumstances have called upon us simply and solely to offer us rebirth!" "Why is so hard to summon the new potentialities of existence, to begin again with faith in 'tomorrows that sing', to be once more virginal under the dawn that calls for expansive newness? We don't know how to offer the New -- ritualistically, in sacrifice -- the fruits of our past to which we remain so attached; or we do not dare, because the ghosts of the closing cycle crowd upon us, oppress us, and block the door to new possibility. "Courage is the need: the courage to have faith in man's inalienable right and responsibility to make new and unprecedented beginnings; the courage to dismiss and forget the ghosts; the courage to face the awesome darkness of the Night of the Soul in certainty of dawn: the courage to allow one's consciousness and ego to be ground like a lens to the perfect form that will enable the creative light of the new potentiality to become precisely, effectively, and accurately focused upon one's innermost center of being, and thence released in love for all. Courage, faith, and throughout the whole way, love, and clarity of mind: these are the essential requirements for whoever dares to enter the Path, the path of ever-renewed transformation." Current Astrological Highlights This week we have the double-ripple of the Fool Moon in late Pisces on Tuesday, March 18 at 2:34 a.m. PST, and the Aries Equinox (Spring above the equator, Autumn below the equator), when the Sun crosses into the sign Aries, on Thursday March 20, 2003 at 6:00 p.m. PST. On Wednesday, we will experience something called the Sun being void of course. This condition is rarely noted by modern astrologers. It works much like the Moon being void of course. When the Sun is finished making aspects to other planets, or when other slower planets (such as the Moon) are not making aspects to the Sun, it is void of course. The effect is truly strange, working like a door to a different dimension of possibility. Unusual things happen, and can happen. But they are not stable. They will probably not lead to lasting results. Webcasting Comes to Planet Waves, or Vice Versa Every Wednesday at 8:45 a.m. PST or 11:45 a.m. EST, I do a live webcast at http://www.voiceofvashon.org/ hosted by Susan McCabe. Please spread the word. ? SUBSCRIPTION RENEWALS The first group of people who signed on for six-month subscriptions (around September 2002) are up for renewal. If this is you and you would like to keep receiving this newsletter, please call Chelsea today at (206) 463-7827, OR email her at support@planetwaves.net. You may also renew online at: http://www.ericfrancis.com/orders.html -- just please send us an email telling us that you did. One-year renewals must be done by phone. ? Planet Waves by Eric Francis http://www.PlanetWaves.net/ March 14, 2003 Late Pisces Birthdays If you are born in the last week of Pisces or so, you do not live in the same world as everyone else. The world, to you, is more like clay and less like bricks. Time is a different kind of experience. It is more, well, transparent. These are the days of Einstein and Edgar Cayce and Sir Richard Francis Burton. Your birthday this year is marked by the Moonbright, the lighting of both your cognitive and intuitive worlds. But it's also marked by what, for most people, is an overwhelming amount of Piscean energy: Mercury, Uranus, Pallas Athene and asteroid Hopi all join El Sol in your first solar house this year. This adds a variety of other energies, most importantly, the power of strategy on the one hand, and breaking free from all your prior norms, on the other. You are most probably already experiencing the effects of Uranus in Pisces as some kind of shakeup, agitation or very refreshing change. Change will come naturally. What may not come so naturally is you dealing well with people having their reactions to you having feelings. This you will have to learn, and you may need a strategy. Any strategy is better than no strategy. You can expect people to respond to the fact that you are changing, and that you know your mind when it comes to the need to change. But just remember that you may need to hold your ground. Part of that may mean delaying sexual relations with anyone before you are fairly certain that a mutual sense of who the other is exists. The fact that you may be a lot to handle and have a lot to offer is no excuse for being less than who you are. Aries (March 20-April 19) Most certainly you've felt the shift in the air in the past week. The movements of two of the most energized planets, Mars and Uranus, are working nicely to inspire your creative vision and your worldly ambition at the same time. The name of the game is something like rebellious authority; unlike military intelligence, this is not an oxymoron. You have both the gift of vision -- some hot new vision or dream -- and the command of your world to make it happen. Whereas once you may have felt like your vision was subject to criticism and various forces pushing you into retreat, now, your sense of what is possible is a whole lot wilder and your attitude is all about get it done. Just remember -- your karmic mission is creativity without compromise. Try it, you'll like it. Taurus (April 19-May 20) The past week has seen a heightening of your wishes and dreams, which obviously include getting more high-vibration passion into your life, and for a moment it really felt possible. Now you may be wondering whether that was totally an illusion or a mirage, or whether such a thing is possible, and why it seems that the more aware you become, the less of what you need the most seems available. Consider that the lower you go on the food chain, the more there is to eat. The more you raise your standards or your consciousness, the better you feel about yourself, and the more aware you become, the more nature selects out those with whom you have no business associating. Patience. Gemini (May 20-June 21) For a long time you've lived with Saturn going through your sign, which is one of the most important career factors we have to work with in astrology. Saturn has been the driving force behind your compelled maturity (in many aspects of your life) of the past two or three years. Few people would bother maturing if not forced to do so. Now another factor has come into the spotlight, and there is professional news. There is something brewing. The other columnists are trying to get at it too. I'll lay it on ya thusly. Most people who are wildly successful in life either do exactly what their parents did, or they break free from all their parental patterns and conditioning and go their own way. They are the ones for whom the possibility that mom and dad may hold them as a failure, or 'not get it', is utterly irrelevant. Anyway -- I see you have a plan; now you just need to act on it. Cancer (June 21-July 22) You may notice that the approach some people have been taking to you lately is somewhat less than sensitive. You may also notice that it's refreshingly direct. Life would be grand if people knew how to balance sensitivity and clarity, but you might as well take what you can get. At least one thing is for sure: you will soon know who is who in your life, if you're not already getting a good indication of this. Due to the Sun's journey through the mysterious last degrees of Pisces in the coming days, you are likely to find a number of unexpected openings or surprise offerings of support. If you take the time to look at all the colors in the spectrum known as the world, many gifts await you. Leo (July 22-Aug 23) Among the numerous sign-changes by planets in recent days is Ceres, the Earth-Mother goddess, entering Taurus, at the top of your solar chart. The way this fits the rest of your chart suggests the enrichment of your life, and renegotiating your agreements in life on very different terms than ever before. Life really is a lot better when you know how beautiful and worthy you are, but better still when you can feel these things from the inside out. This is a good time to emphasize the renegotiating part. We all live bound by certain agreements; most of them we don't know about or understand. The truth is that most of our agreements and contracts are based on some version of scarcity and not abundance. When you rearrange those deals, you'll be basing them on how much you now have to offer, and how much is now available to you in the form of collective resources. Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) The challenges you've faced in the past week are just a taste of what's coming, but the reward will come when you rise to meet them. One of my favorite books, The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment, begins with the statement, "We are equal beings and the universe is our relationships with one another." In other words, one way to look at life is to see it as being made of nothing but relationships. You and your cat, you and your computer, you and your lover, you and your family, you and yourself -- we could fairly say that the only real 'thing' is the meeting point between any two entities, whether we consider them to be alive or not. We could sum up these months of your life with the idea that everything and everyone now has the power to touch you more deeply than ever. You are subject to change. Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) Everything is so personal in that impersonal way. There is something really sexy going on, but it seems a little air-conditioned. Turn off that dumb thing and open the window. If it's snowing and the heat is on, open the window. Breathe in some chilly fresh air. Get outside for a walk even if it's the middle of notime. You really are free, in fact, not in theory. Love is a fact, not a theory. I could see passion seeming awfully cerebral right now, but as I'm implying, sensory experience is the way to get right through that veil. The thing is that nothing else will. Drugs don't do it any more. Nor do steamy novels, nor does honoring yourself as the sacred virgin, keeper of the hearth. Summon your inner whore; she is waiting for you. You will still respect yourself tomorrow. You will also have more fun. Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) For the past several months I've been tracking a group of minor planets moving through Scorpio, which give one version of the growth process you're currently experiencing. The three planets are Pholus, the second Centaur planet, plus asteroids Bacchus, Psyche, Juno and Sappho. Pholus, a close cousin of Chiron, is the energy of sudden release, often from issues that have persisted for three generations. This particular issue involves a marriage-related crisis, either the idea or the reality, or a combination. There is an old wound being carried through your family line. Certain people who were alcoholics or tyrants of some kind perpetuated it. You may feel like it's never going to heal, but the very point is, you are healing. Steady as she goes, Scorpio, and remember who your friends are. Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22) I have not mentioned that a new planet, a rather special new planet, was recently discovered in your sign. There have been many recent discoveries beyond the orbit of Pluto, but the one of which I speak -- Quaoar -- is distinguished by being the largest planetary discovery since Pluto in 1930. According to http://www.Karmastrology.com, "The name Quaoar comes from the creation mythology of the Tongva people, the indigenous inhabitants of what is today the Los Angeles area of Southern California. The Tongva lived there peacefully for hundreds if not thousands of years before the Europeans first arrived in the 1600s." The site quotes Mark Acuna, Tongva scholar, dancer and tribal elder: "'Quaoar', the great force of creation, sings and dances the high ones (Deities) into existence. While Quaoar has no form or gender he is usually referred to with the male pronoun. He dances and sings first 'Weywot' who becomes Sky Father; they sing and dance 'Chehooit' Earth Mother into existence. The trio sing 'Tamit' Grandfather Sun to life. As each divine one joins the singing and dancing, the song becomes more complex and the dance more complicated." I'll have to remember to ask about this in church on Sunday. Anyway, The Clash used to say "Know your rights." I would say: Know Your Creation Myth -- so you can live it. Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) You are no doubt feeling the effects of Mars in your sign right now, one of the places it goes the very best. Mars, said to be 'exalted' in Capricorn, is the god of desire and, in days of yore, of war -- but not of negotiation or diplomacy. You might want to be aware that everything you project outward is travelling with considerable force and momentum, even if it feels like you're being 'just you.' If you hope sincerely for the last of your desires to be fulfilled, you will need to use your considerable energy to seek common ground as a primary vocation. Mars is a sharp, hot, moving object. You may find that a different approach -- more like warm, still and soft -- gets the results you want. Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) You are now in the thick of the first of two major shifts of energy that will redefine your life in the remainder of 2003. We could say that you're slowly being drawn into the pool of your own feelings. It's not so bad after all. You'll notice that you're under a lot less pressure. But that's not an accurate description. The way major planetary changes work, in this case of Uranus and Saturn, their movement can create the feeling that we are living on a totally new planet. There is often a period of major reorientation, as if someone moved around every object in your house and every thought in your mind and you have to go looking for all of it, which in turn compels you to live your life thoroughly differently. Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) It is true that people often resent those they consider to be more free than themselves. And it's true that when we make any attempt to go beyond the past, we will meet resistance from various quarters. People often try to hold us to the previous vision of who we were. Or the fact that we are changing or becoming more daring might make them feel unstable, insecure or somehow inferior. As a Pisces you are known for your sensitivity, and famous for your tendency to take every little thing people feel personally. But the recent ingress of Uranus into your birth sign suggests strongly that you would do well to learn how not to. No matter what you say or do, or don't say or do, you will push the buttons on certain people. But that is very much their concern, not yours. How do newspaper horoscopes work? Planet Waves Weekly and PlanetWaves.net are edited by Eric Francis, with help from Chelsea Bottinelli and the Vision List. This newsletter is $49.95 per year and published 52 times per year plus the monthly horoscope. We encourage our readers to contribute their artwork and writing to the Planet Waves project and to cultivate themselves as creative forces in the unusual and socially formative times in which we live. |
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