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| "In the name of love, one more in the name of love" -- Bono Thank you Martin Luther King Jr. News Flash Ashcroft Rules that Babies Must Nurse Blindfolded In a ruling that has eased the minds of 85% of the nation's population, according to a new Washington Times-Gallup poll, Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered last week that infants who nurse at their mother's bosom must do so blindfolded. The ruling is intended to stop immoral depravity where it begins, in the home and at a young age. "It is disgusting enough that innocent infants sometimes suck on a woman's breasts," he said at a news conference. "This will at least prevent them from looking." A new study, conducted by the Brookings Institution, concluded that breast feeding leads directly to sex, though the results are usually seen 15 to 20 years later. However some scientists, while acknowledging a cause and effect relationship between nursing and sex, offered other possibilities. "It is sex that appears to lead to nursing," said Dr. Joanne La Leche of Tufts University. "But checking the scientific literature, we can't find a single study proving the relationship. Much like our belief about the measles virus causing the measles, the presumption appears to be based on anecdotal evidence. Mr. Ashcroft may be onto something." The attorney general stopped short of requiring babies who do not breastfeed to drink from a glass, though he was concerned that the nipple on baby bottles could be a dangerous influence on the young, and should be kept hidden from older siblings. In response to the ruling, Calvin Klein introduced a line of nursing blindfolds, which retail for $195. And a belated April Fool's day from Planet Waves Weekly. The Pink Slip Heard Round the World Dear Fellow Traveler: "Whenever I gave a report on civilian casualties on CNN (in the first Gulf War) the Pentagon and the Bush administration got very angry and called me a traitor." A noteworthy comment, but especially so coming from Peter Arnett, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter fired earlier this week by NBC, MSNBC and National Geographic after granting an interview to Iraqi television. It may seem either unfortunate or righteously patriotic that Arnett was fired. Many people agree with the Pentagon -- he's a traitor and he shouldn't be criticizing his country. Something called the American Family Association (http://www.afa.net/) is circulating an internet petition asking that George Bush revoke the passport of Peter Arnett, forcing him to remain in Iraq. "Since Peter Arnettt has elected to become the mouthpiece for the Iraqi regime; I ask that you revoke his passport and let him remain in Iraq," the petition says. The overriding theme of the Arnett interview, which lasted about five minutes, was the reporter's concern about civilian casualties, and coverage of civilian casualties. "In answer to your question, it is clear that within the United States there is growing challenge to President Bush about the conduct of the war and also opposition to the war. So our reports about civilian casualties here, about the resistance of the Iraqi forces, are going back to the United States. It helps those who oppose the war when you challenge the policy to develop their arguments." He added, "I think American policy and strategy is the weakest when it comes to the Iraqi people. The U.S. administration is concerned with the possibility of killing civilians, because the international community is very concerned about the Iraqi people. President Bush says he is concerned about the Iraqi people, but if Iraqi people are dying in numbers, then American policy will be challenged very strongly." And poof, he got fired. Isn't that funny? He made the 'error' of talking about the value of life during the coverage of a war. To wage a war, its creators and supporters must muster up quite a bit of indifference to life. War is about murder and rape, after all. If you foster sensitivity, if you appeal to people to care about the victims of war, and remind them that the people under the bombs are in pain, that defeats the whole purpose, and it quite literally threatens to defeat the plan. Muzzling Peter Arnett was just a warning to other journalists who might witness horrors and report honestly about them. Let's remember that Peter Arnett's real bosses, the parent corporations of the two networks he worked for until this week -- General Electric and Microsoft -- are both important military contractors. They profiteer from war, making things like guidance systems for missiles and operating system software for battleships (frightening). This has not been mentioned anywhere I've seen. The connection is not what you could honestly call subtle. But since the media itself 'ignores' the link, most people don't know. What's really happening is that the networks become a vast commercial for the product known as war, from which they directly profit. Arnett's being fired became the story, but his comments, that is, what he actually said and why he got fired, came along for the ride. Thanks to his corporate bosses, the message arrived with added emphasis because it became an unusual episode. Had they left him alone, his five-minute interview would have been forgotten. I mean really: who watches Iraqi TV? And who cares what they say about it in the British press? But now his words have been immortalized worldwide in newspapers, search engines and databases, via transcripts available even on CNN itself -- which once fired Arnett for his proclivity, unbefitting of a professional journalist, to tell the truth about war. Arnett was hired by the Daily Mirror in the UK, which has taken a decidedly anti-war editorial stance. The real postscript to the story is that he later apologized for his comments in Iraqi television, saying he used poor judgment. He did not retract them, however; we can assume that his supposed poor judgment related to his broadcasting career. The incident reveals a split within him, one which anyone speaking out for humanitarian causes would do well to examine within themselves. The Astrology This gem of a media moment emerged on the eve of the Aries new moon, and as Mars applied in an exact conjunction to Chiron. This was a seed moment, arriving during two very significant conjunctions and at a critical turning point in the war. This year we've seen a number of critical turning points follow lunar events -- for example, the events of February, including the Columbia disaster at the new moon followed by the massive worldwide peace protests at the full moon. We are now in a similar cycle, where an unusually strong new moon chart will be followed up by a comparable full moon on April 16. In last week's edition, I covered how the Mars-Chiron conjunction often favors the underdog and encourages non-conventional tactics. A Mars-Chiron conjunction in 1968, for example, heralded the downfall of Robert McNamara, one of the engineers of the Vietnam War, and that of President Lyndon Johnson, one of the war's most ardent advocates. In those same weeks the Tet Offensive happened, which was a military defeat for the North Vietnamese, but a major public relations disaster for advocates of the war in the United States. Chiron, fired up by Mars, will liven up the already rebellious spirit of Chiron in Capricorn. Like Cynthia Cooper of Worldcom, Coleen Rowley of the FBI and Sherron Watkins of Enron, Peter Arnett became a whistle-blower. People who blow the whistle usually do so at their own peril. One way or another, they are forced to stand alone and in opposition to the dominant cultural expectation that they will behave themselves. In such times, personal integrity becomes not so much an intellectual abstraction but rather a measure of their capacity to survive in the world. We see an integrity issue appear with the square of two named Centaur planets, Asbolus in Aquarius square Pholus in Scorpio. This aspect has been very close for a number of days, and is exact now. Centaurs all act as catalysts, prompting changes or increasing the speed and impact of events. Asbolus has been whipping through Aquarius this year (it's very close to the Sun, called perihelion, hence, moving through the zodiac quite fast). It's been making a lot of friction to a heavy-duty grouping of planets that's taken up residence in Scorpio, which is headed by Pholus, the second Centaur planet. Pholus is the energy of the release of something long pent-up. In my astrological readings, I see it as the indicator of where we're being prompted by life to resolve an issue that has persisted for three or more generations. Pholus is quite literally the place where we are doing the work of our grandparents and great-grandparents. Pholus in Scorpio has been working to release an ocean of long-repressed sexual energy, like a rig digging a well into a reserve of fossilized seawater in the Midwest. The current Scorpio alignment, which has been building for several months and is peaking now, also includes Psyche, Sappho and Juno. This is prompting a lot of examination of sexual and relationship issues: Juno deals with legal partnerships and, in Scorpio, with issues of sexual possession; and Sappho talks about both bringing groups together and same-sex pairings. Psyche has a lot to do with old wounds, and the sense that one is permanently afflicted. Most of us do walk around with a sense, conscious or otherwise, that we have a permanent psychic or spiritual affliction 'below the belt', which is one of Scorpio's most important domains. Run Asbolus past all of that in a tight square aspect and there can be some extreme examples of provocation. I think that war is one of the most gross and obvious examples of relationship dysfunction going, and one of the most vivid expressions of sexual wounding. Do we really think all our young people now in the Persian Gulf region want to be shooting and bombing the handsome, down-to-earth people of Iraq? Asbolus works first like a Centaur: he catalyzes, accelerates, and operates on a kind of cellular level. But specifically, he is about penetrating the veils of illusion using instinct and intuition. This Centaur has been very influential this year, particularly relating to the events of February. In Aquarius, we can infer themes of group consciousness and the way that groups impact on the awareness and values of an individual -- and consequently, how individuals are willing to compromise to belong to a group. This theme is also accentuated by asteroid Sappho, which brings people together. Here is my short interpretation: Asbolus in Aquarius is provoking us to have a more sane and realistic view of sexual issues, particularly how we deal with our sexual wounding. Which leads to the astrology of Peter Arnett. Arnett's natal chart is dominated by a Sun-Venus conjunction in Scorpio, which is tightly squared by Saturn in Aquarius. He has both Sun square Saturn, and Venus square Saturn. This is a very powerful structure that also is likely to come with a sense of being hamstrung -- backed into a corner, working with limited vitality, and difficult conditions in relationships both with women and social groups. But it also builds what used to be called 'character' -- a kind of strength of will and indomitability. Add one more planet to the mix: his natal Asbolus, which is in Taurus, opposite the Sun and tightly square Saturn. This week, all that action currently in Scorpio is working over his Sun-Venus conjunction, and Asbolus is making both an exact conjunction to his natal Saturn and an exact square to his natal Asbolus. All of these aspects are happening at exact right angles. With Saturn, we have the main structure of a person involved; with the Sun, their solar will and primary expression of self; with Venus, the anima, the receptive-erotic and the values system. "I see an excess of integrity that works against him and ends up betraying him," writes minor planet specialist Juan Revilla. "Rather than lack of integrity, what he reflected in his apology is pain and remorse, being tragically divided or cracked inside. He manifests a lot of self-doubt and self-recrimination, as someone who really doesn't know in what side he is and is divided or damaged inside, lacking self-assurance. Because of his integrity (Sun) he told a simple truth to the Iraqis that the whole world has been seeing and commenting about over and over again, exalting the strength of the Iraqi resistance (their sense of dignity = the Sun), and that same integrity made him give an apology in front of the camera, however pitiful or cowardly his excuses seem. The solar conflict indicates that his sense of allegiance is mixed-up, since he obviously feels sympathy for the Iraqi cause and has expressed before (during the 1991 Gulf War CNN broadcasts) that he hates all wars." Revilla looked at Arnett's long history of controversial coverage of in the context of an internal conflict indicated by the chart. Remember, though, that square aspects -- of which Arnett has many -- require a lifetime of integration. "He jumps into very heinous and controversial wars (Asbolus) where he wants to expose the darkness and evil aspect of his abusive father, but he does it in a way that he exposes his own wound, his own pain, repeating the damage that he endured in the past. He is hunting his father, but he finds himself scattered (the people damaged and wounded by the war), and ends up being hunted by his need or compulsion (his passion) as a controversial (Asbolus) war reporter. "That nightmarish American and British army invading and desolating poor people's homes and families, leaving death, ash and smoke behind, is a good description of Asbolus, and their dignified resistance is a projection of Peter Arnett's Sun opposite Asbolus." ++ 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. Planet Waves by Eric Francis http://www.PlanetWaves.net/ Mid-Aries Birthdays This is not merely a time of beginnings for you, but of a whole new approach to life. The way to work with this energy, then, is not to start new things, but rather to approach what you are currently doing in a new way. There is, for certain, a whole new kind of opportunity you are seeking, and a very different way of interacting with your culture and community. Yet the most likely way you're going to create that is through bringing the many internal changes you've recently made into some manner of expression in the world. The question, "Does this express who I am now?" is your most powerful tool in this process. Keep asking and eventually you will find yourself acting on the answer. The rebellious quality of Mars conjunct Chiron in your career house (Capricorn) can indicate anything from restlessness with your current condition to an outright revolt against any system of which you are part. But Chiron wants us to revolt mindfully, and artfully. In personal relationships, partners are especially sensitive and are heading for changes they may not yet be aware of. You don't need to DO anything about this, you just need to BE present for their process. This can be extraordinarily challenging, but if you need help, remember when you needed someone to just be there for you, not do anything. Reassurance is indeed cheap. Your unconditional presence is precious, and will be valued in the long run. Aries (March 20-April 19) Homeopathy, my favorite branch of medicine, works with the idea that the patient's main responsibility in his healing process is carefully describing the different states and conditions in his or her mind and body. This is a strange idea to many who are accustomed to western medicine because most doctors don't care to have that much detail, and they are not interested in whether you have a little more of that condition when you're feeling hungry or blue. But homeopathy works. Many people report feeling better just for having talked to the practitioner, long before a remedy is given or even finalized. There is wisdom in this and it can benefit you now. Keep careful track of what you experience and what you become aware of. Share it with someone or two people you know will care enough to give you objective feedback. If you do this over time, you're likely to find that any problems you are facing vanish into the momentary chaos from which they emerged. Taurus (April 19-May 20) There is a close friend who has the healing gift you need. If you need a reason, it's because they understand you in a way that you cannot possibly understand yourself, and which you can't explain, either. Understanding is a matter of perspective, that is, of vantage point. And this person's vantage point will help you see things in a way that's going to offer you the inner strength and insight you need to get to your next stage of growth. But there is more. We heal because our energy moves. Healing is an idea, for sure, but it's a special kind of idea that reaches many layers into a person, and there is an actual shift of the structure of identity on the foundations of reality. If you want this to happen, you really need to do very little -- just be open to receiving, and you will receive. Gemini (May 20-June 21) Beneath the many things you are experiencing and seeking information about, there is one truth. It's your personal truth, and its main characteristic is that every separate event, incident, feeling and symptom leads straight down to it -- as if they are all pages in one great volume, each of which leads to the binding that holds them all together. Where you've gone wrong in the recent past has been attempting to apprehend and solve each problem separately. Now, it's true enough that our minds are carefully trained to divide and conquer, so you can't count on conventional thought to get you to where you need to be. And what else is there? There is the careful study of patterns, and the miracle of pattern recognition. Look at every issue, in writing, preferably, and ask what they all have in common. When in doubt, start with any two. Keep going. In a little while, you'll stumble upon something you'll value for the rest of your life. Cancer (June 21-July 22) Those who take care of aquarium fish know that the health of the water is the health of the critters who live in it. If you have a problem with the fish, test the water, nourish and help the water. Life is an interconnected network, and this is the dominant quality of your sign. Perhaps that's why ancient astrologers put the emphasis on family bonding on the sign Cancer. You are in a stage of life when the health of your family and community is the same thing as your own health. Work for the wellness of the whole, and work for seeing contact points where either healing or difficulty are transmitted. There is more to this holistic approach than you may imagine. A single individual within a group dynamic who is struggling can throw off the energy of everyone close by. It may not always be possible to know what's happening -- but look for clues within certain distinctive one-to-one partnerships. Leo (July 22-Aug 23) How do you keep a cat healthy? If you ask me, a cat door and the fewer shots the better. Most of how cats stay healthy is by being incredibly relaxed, particularly in their skeletal systems. There is a branch of medicine called osteopathy, and it has a cousin called cranio-sacral therapy. Osteopathy works with the bone structures as a key portal to health. CS therapy works with the subtle movement of the spinal fluid. It's an incredibly gentle process that can help restore the body and emotions to a state of health, and most important, help integrate the two. That would be very helpful, whether you do it on your own or with assistance. But when in doubt, look to your bones for clues and indicators of what your body needs. Listen to your bones. They can talk, and they can stretch. Just like you. Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22) Of all the signs, the mind-body nexus is the most closely woven for Virgo. That is to say, what is present in your mental and emotional condition will reflect rather quickly and dependably in your physical body, and when your mind changes, your body is likely to change just a little later. The obvious good news here is that you are responsive to healing methods that work through the mind and the feelings. Consciousness itself, sometimes called awareness, is your most powerful healing modality. Your mind is like a mansion with endless rooms, and over the past four to six seasons, you've gained access to many places that were off-limits for years. Your most recent healing breakthrough was the result of your process of going through the restricted areas, and daring to be aware. If you maintain this process, the greatest gift is yet to come. In the end, you will see it was nothing more than changing your mind about something very simple. Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) Emotions are not usually considered an especially scientific area of knowledge, but in truth there is a great deal of scientific data available to indicate that they behave in extremely predictable ways. Early emotional climates establish both the tenor likely to dominate the lifetime, and also the patterns of one's relationships -- until we tune in and make changes. In a similar way, homeopaths describe what are called 'disease roots' -- the transmission of the basic elements of certain chronic conditions that have no pathway known to medicine, but which may be transmitted vibrationally from one generation to the next. Vibration is exactly where it's at for you these days. How you feel is going to tell you more about how you are doing than any other means of investigation. I recognize that there are times lately when you haven't felt in prime form emotionally. Yet those sensations contain awesome information. There is, within you and all around you, the sense that when you really step into your feelings, you will step into a space of releasing anything that ails you. Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) It would appear that this has been a deep and complex time in your emotional journey, and this has presented you with the over-riding necessities and challenges on your agenda. There are several reasons the current seasons are an extraordinarily unique time in your healing journey. The first is that you are now in touch with the strange sense of a 'wound that never heals' and can see that this, itself, is a paradigm that has done quite a bit to hold you back. Second is that you are at a very rare point of being able to resolve something that has plagued your family line going back about three generations beyond your own. Even if you don't actually have the sense that you're 'solving' certain painful and persistent issues right now, the research and investigation you do in these months will ultimately lead you to the answer that you seek. It is part genetic, part karmic, and part contained in the peculiar way your forebears just simply seemed to lose faith right when they needed it the most. Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22) You now need as many viewpoints as you can get, but more over, you need to understand those viewpoints. As ever, you're in the role of being your own doctor and therapist. However, it would be rather unwise and a waste of time to forego the wisdom of what others who have devoted their lives to solving certain problems have discovered. Yet I suggest you do more than 'take advice'. You need to seek a depth of comprehension about what you're being told, whether the process is psychotherapy, massage therapy or nutrition. Having an in-depth understanding of several different viewpoints will allow you to create your own totally unique perspective, which is going to contain the true revelation. In this process, make sure you have the most detailed level of traditional wisdom available, and that you touch base with a couple of the more out-there schools of thought. It's not that the truth is somewhere in between. The truth is a careful mix of very specific facts. Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) In many different healing processes, the question is asked by clients and patients: what is the value of intimately knowing the past? Isn't the past over, and what can I do about it now? A few visceral examples of experiencing the effects of what is supposedly long-gone are often enough to answer the question. One problem with the past is specifically that it leaves a legacy, in both the body and the emotions. Another is that its effects are usually totally obscured by how ever-present they are. The relationship between the past and the present is more like a tree and the land it's on rather than like a car that drove by an hour ago. I speak of two levels of events that are likely to be having an effect on you right now. One is from your deep, even unremembered childhood. These months are likely to be the single most important phase of your life for remembering and healing certain specific events and their aftermath. The second dates to approximately August 2001, through the following spring. Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) Medicine is an art. The crisis of modern medicine is that it fancies itself a science. True, it can point to scientific facts that say its greatest successes, statistically, come when strict science is applied to cases. (For example, computers supposedly diagnose heart attacks a lot better than doctors.) Artists use science, but many scientists are loathe to stoop to the level of art. Yet the sheer number and diversity of variables, and the degree to which individuals are just that, necessitates an artistic approach. As do you right now. You are something of an unsolved mystery and an exception to the rule. Your symptoms and feelings are likely to elude strict diagnostic principles because they are not subtle enough to embrace who you are and what you're experiencing. But you're likely to be well within the reach of those healers gifted enough to peer between the layers of who you are. Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) Much of your life story right now is about adapting to change, and coping with the pressure to change, and meeting a newly-emerged inner desire to be free that is beyond anything you've known in recent aeons. This process can be as stressful as it is exciting. How you handle working out the delicate balance that is necessary will be the prime factor behind your health for the foreseeable future. Yet in the not-so-distant past, your difficulty living up to your own desire to be free has brought you quite a bit of emotional struggle, and that took its toll. There are no easy answers, but you do have options, and freedom is just another word for exercising choice. One option is to live like you are healthy and alive, and thus find out just how healthy and alive you really are. I can tell you this. You may often underestimate your need for love in your life. Don't even try. 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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