Dias de los Muertos

By Jeanne Treadway

La Catrina is the reigning queen of Dias de los Muertos, the Mexican fiesta honoring the dead. Finely dressed in an upper-class Victorian style, an oversized, feathered and flowered hat perched primly on her skull, elegant but skeletal, La Catrina was popularized by Jose Guadalupe Posada in his political lampoons of the corrupt regime of Porfirio Díaz. Her role, then and now, is simple: She reminds us that rich or poor, famed or unknown, we all eventually become skeletons.

Dias de los Muertos is celebrated throughout Mexico and parts of the Southwest United States. Traditions vary but generally November 1, known in the Catholic world as All Saints Day, honors dead children and is frequently called Dia de los Angelitos (Day of the Little Angels). All Souls Day, November 2, honors all ancestors. Some communities use October 28 to pay tribute to those who died a violent death, while October 29 can be a day to honor the unbaptized, and October 30 often serves as a day of remembering lonely souls. All celebrations include building ornate altars, extended family gatherings, bountiful feasting, storytelling, and meticulous decoration of cemeteries.

HISTORY

Many cultures honor their dead with annual rituals and celebrations; often thousands of years old, these ceremonies frequently occur around the new year. On their Lunar New Year, Asians explode tons of fireworks, burn costly shrines created to honor ancestors, and parade dragons noisily through streets. Memorial Day in the United States is a somber occasion and leans toward the militaristic; rituals include draping red, white, and blue bunting everywhere, planting flags, and intoning long lists of those who died in service to the armed forces. Celts build enormous bonfires on their new year's eve, October 31, known as Samhain, and commune with their dead while the veil between the worlds of the living and the dead is at its thinnest.

Early Christian history is often vexingly convoluted and that is the case here. The original All Saints Day appears to have been celebrated May 13, 609 (maybe 610) by Pope Boniface IV when he rededicated the Pantheon in Rome to Santa Maria and all martyrs. May 13 coincides with the final day of Lemuria, a Roman three-day ritual honoring ancestral spirits. All members of a community attended a feast on that date and ritually forgave each other's past transgressions. Sometime during his reign (731-741), Pope Gregory III moved the date to November 1. It seems that the hierarchy of the early church had difficulty altering the pagan traditions of early Christians, because records show that both Pope Gregory IV (827-844) and Pope Gregory VII (1073-85) were forced to again mandate November 1 as feast day of All Saints.

Then, circa C.E. 1000, Saint Odilo, the abbot of Cluny, decreed that on November 2 all Cluniacs would offer special prayers for Christian souls expiating their sins in purgatory. The Benedictines and Carthusians followed suit and shortly thereafter the Catholic Church officially added November 2 to its all-star lineup of holy days.

Before the Spanish conquest of the American continents, the cultures of Meso-America, especially the Nahua (Toltec, Aztec, Tlaxcaltec, Chichimec, Tecpanec and others from the Valley of Mexico), remembered their dead in a month-long celebration that centered around the return of the Monarch butterfly, a symbol of the returning souls of the dead. The 3000-year-old festival specifically honored the dynamic duality of life; rather than an end, death was simply a continuation of life to the Meso-Americans. Mictecacihuatl, a goddess believed to have died at birth and known as the Lady of the Dead, presided over the ceremonies.

Catholic Spaniards rigorously attacked this frightful celebration with its skulls and skeletons, dancing and feasting, which in their European sensibilities was an unholy mockery of death. Using techniques learned from subalterning indigenous holy days for more than a millennium, the Catholics moved the fiesta from August to their November timeframe and whittled it down from a month to two days. They were never quite able to complete the transformation to a somber, religious ceremony spent in prayer, for Dias de los Muertos is a far cry from anything resembling serious Catholic mourning.

TRADITIONS

Dias de los Muertos has a complex history and because of this regional celebrations vary significantly. Some Mexicans begin this holy period on the evening of October 31. Others observe November 1 solely. Some communities extend the ritual for as long as a week. Key elements, though, appear in virtually all Mexican rituals: the ofrenda or altar, feasting, cempasuchiles (yellow marigolds), calaveras (skulls), incense (usually copal, a tree resin), pan de muerto (bread decorated with powdered sugar bones), and gravesite grooming.

Traditional Hispanic cementarios (cemeteries) and descansos (little crosses marking the site of someone's death) are regularly tended. Family members visit gravesites on all significant anniversaries, including days of birth, death, and marriage, and adorn the headstone with flowers, repaint the ornate fence surrounding the plot, and commune with their dead by telling stories and praying. In Animal Dreams, Barbara Kingsolver richly paints a vision of one such carefully tended cemetery:

One of the graves, a great-uncle of J.T.'s named Vigilancio Domingos, was completely bordered with ancient-looking tequila bottles, buried nose down ... It was a remarkable aesthetic -- I don't mean just Uncle Vigilancio, but the whole. Some graves had shrines with niches peopled by saints; some looked like botanical gardens of paper and silk; others had the initials of loved ones spelled out on the mound in white stones. The unifying principle was that the simplest thing was done with the greatest care. It was a comfort to see this attention lavished on the dead. In these families you would never stop being loved.

Dias de los Muertos is a time for thorough cleaning and decoration of all gravesites. Old and young, everyone in the family attends the dead on these days and the event is festive, often resembling a large community picnic. Much of one day is spent caring for those interred; those graves with no living family in attendance will receive as conscientious care as any other site during Dias de los Muertos. Again, Kingsolver gives a delicious glimpse of the atmosphere:

Little girls and boys played "make-up," standing on tiptoe with their eyes closed and their arms at their sides, fingers splayed in anticipation, while a grownup used a marigold as a powder puff, patting cheeks and eyelids with golden pollen. Golden children ran wild over a field of dead great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers, and the bones must have wanted to rise up and knock together and rattle with joy.

Elaborate ofrendas are created in virtually every home preparatory for these feast days. Traditional altars are three-tiered and covered in white cloth. Creativity flits and tumbles in the embellishment of these shrines. Decorations may include toys for the children who have died, piñatas, balloons, tequila for the adults, cigarettes if the dead one smoked, enchiladas and tamales for everyone, living and dead. Certainly photographs of the beloved dead will grace the altar, as will candles. Besides the calacas (wooden skulls) and skeletons that bedeck the family's ofrenda, pan de muerto and sugar skulls, with each family member's name scripted across the forehead, lay ready to be consumed.

Cascades of purple, white, and pink papeles picados (tissue paper decorations) stream around the three tiers. These colors are specific because, for the Mexicans, purple embodies pain, sorrow, and suffering; white stands for hope and renewal; and pink represents life, happiness and celebration. Flowers in abundance, especially the cempasuchiles (yellow marigolds), greet the returning spirits and are often spread from the altar toward the cemetery. Marigolds are known as the flower with four-hundred lives and symbolize death to Meso-Americans. Copal incense (an aromatic resin regarded as holy) attracts the spirits of the dead and welcomes them to the festivities being held in their honor. The favorite music of the dead plays throughout the day, while family members dance and reminisce.

Dias de los Muertos is a communal and convivial celebration. To illustrate, in The Day of the Dead and Other Mortal Reflections, F. Gonzalez-Crussi retells a story of visiting the department of pathology at the General Hospital of Mexico City. He is working with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on a documentary that has become an exploration of death and the human rituals surrounding it. Film crew and pathologists cram into the hallways of the hospital while an elaborate ofrenda is created during Dias de los Muertos festivities. Poems are recited, ancestors are remembered, and stories are recounted.

Imagine the other half of the scene: Outside the hospital, fireworks explode; parades stream towards cemeteries; thousands of children dance with skeletons of every imaginable construction; adults wearing calacas (wooden skulls) cavort, teasing children and scaring dogs; extravagant picnics abound, moving from street to cementario; singing and storytelling combine in flamboyant and outlandish dramas. Only in Mexico would one find such juxtaposition of death and life.

ART

Toymaking and calaveras are thoroughly interwoven with this fiesta. Most of the images associated today with Dias de los Muertos were originally stylized by Juan Guadalupe Posada (1852-1913) in his satiric posters, etchings, and lithographs. Mexicans have traditionally called Lady Death by such names as La Flaca (skinny), La Pelona (baldy), or La Huesa (bony). Posada's Calavera de la Catrina (fancy lady) drew on this tradition and has since become an ubiquitous icon. She was Posada's pointed reminder to the wealthy -- even you shall die, nevermind your mink stoles and ostrich-plumed hats. Now, grinning skeletons grace every conceivable material; even papeles picados sport Posada-like calaveras.

Posada's political art was scathing and bold. He satirized the most powerful and violent people of his time. For example, one of his pieces, Calavera Huertista, portrays the brutal General Huerta. A catalogue to an exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1944 describes this piece: "Into it he poured all his hatred as a free man of the tyrant whom he portrayed as a repugnant tarantula with the tail of a scorpion, insatiably devouring other skulls." Posada's art appeared throughout Mexico, was easily accessible to all social strata, and was usually accompanied by rhymed verse that derided the politicians and Church of that era.

Oaxaca, a state in the southern peninsula of Mexico, is renowned for its toymaking. Whimsy reaches high art here and Oaxacan animal figures are recognized by collectors and museums throughout the Americas. A hedgehog may be covered with toothpicks to represent its spines, painted with ten colors, dotted with glitter, and wearing a wolf's grin. Cats and dogs appear with extreme tails and ears, frogs with stilt-like legs, fish with each scale a variant of one or two pigments. Skeletons are an important addition to the Oaxacan Dias de los Muertos fiesta and portray every imaginable role: the Nativity, mariachis, priests, bullfighters, nurses, street sweepers, taxidrivers, favorite actors and musicians, political figures. Inexpensive calavera puppets are made of plywood and string and are adored by children.

Somehow it is simply hilarious to witness preposterous skeletons dancing through every phase of life. This laughter at the antics of death serves as the undercurrent for this varied and intricate fiesta called Dias de los Muertos.++

Copyright ©2003 by Jeanne Treadway, all rights reserved.
Planet Waves Digital Media, publishers.


SOURCES

Gonzalez-Crussi, F., The Day of the Dead and Other Mortal Reflections, Harcourt Brace & Company, New York, 1993.

Kingsolver, Barbara, Animal Dreams, HarperPerennial, New York, 1991.

The Day of the Dead, Bobbi Salinas-Norman.
http://www.peoplesguide.com/1pages/chapts/viva/dodead/bobbi/dodbobi.html

Day of the Dead or El Dia de los Muertos - Oaxaca. - BY MARIA DIAZ in Mexico Connect -- Mexico's monthly ezine / magazine.
http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/mdiaz/mdmuertos.html

The Dead Come to Life in Mexican Folk Art, Mary Jane Gagnier Mendoza.
http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/mjmendoza/mjmdiadelasmuertos.html

Indigenous People Wouldn't Let 'Day of the Dead' Die, Carlos Miller, The Arizona Republic, ezine.
http://www.azcentral.com/ent/dead/history/

LOS DIAS DE LOS MUERTOS (The Days of the Dead), Judy King, ON MEXICO
CONNECT, the premium Ezine and Web Site.
http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/travel/jking/jkdayofthedead.html

Posada; Printmaker to the Mexican People, catalogue for An Exhibition
Lent By the Direccion General de Educacion Estetica, Mexico to the Art
Institute of Chicago, 1944.
http://xerxesbooks.com/cats/mexi871.mv


Unbroken Chain
Bit on Halloween & Scorpio

by Eric Francis

These darkening days of autumn are a mysterious time, marking the waning year and filled with a sense of the inevitable. Those who follow astrology know this is the season of Scorpio, the sign associated with the death and transformation that leads to change, renewal and regeneration of life. At the center of this season is Halloween, the modern version of the ancient Celtic holiday Samhain (pronounced sa-wen).

It may seem like a coincidence that the scary costumes, candle-lit walks to old cemeteries and, for the faithful, the vigils inviting the spirits of ancestors home for All-Hallow's Eve align with the astrological sign of the mysteries of death. But when you consider, in the words of Donna Henes in her book Celestially Auspicious Occasions, that Halloween's symbols -- "the ghosts, masks, fires and food -- are the same as they were thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt," it's clear that Scorpio is part of an unbroken chain of tradition through cultures worldwide.

From the temples on the Nile millennia before the birth of Jesus, through the rise of the Christian movement with its co-opting of local religion, its crusades and inquisitions; from ancient Aztec cultures to Mexico, Spain and Portugal of recent centuries, and even through to modern-day marketing culture, the traditions of Halloween carry a common signature, an identifying mark. Even skeptics who are paying attention must make note that there is something inherent and natural about this time of year for these symbols to arise from the collective consciousness in so many cultures.

In astrology, the "death" symbolism of Scorpio aligns with the tradition of welcoming the spirits of the dead on what the Christians later called All Soul's Night. The grim reaper appears in the season of the final harvest. Historically, this was the time of year when final preparations were being made for the winter that lay ahead by harvesting anything that was left in the fields. In addition, the ancients assessed their livestock and decided which animals were to be slaughtered and preserved for the food that would be eaten during the many cold months to come. The Celts knew that they could only sustain the smallest of herds in the coming months.

It is important to understand that this was a very serious time. In many climates, particularly Ireland, from where most of our Halloween traditions originate, winters were cold and harsh, and the mortality rate was very high. Medicines were made with herbs for the inevitable illnesses to come. Nobody knew for sure who would make it through the long winter, which was, in the harsh climates, a time when many lives ended.

It is no wonder, then, that the opposite Celtic holiday, Beltane, or May Day, is a celebration of fertility and sex, for it was understood that the more joyous and passionate was Beltane, the more fruitful the harvest of the following autumn, and the greater the chances of life being sustained through the following winter. As modern society continues to conquer nature, one may say that these obvious facts of life are departing from our awareness. But the prevalence of Halloween and its images is reassuring.

Traditionally, October 31, Samhain, is a time for communing with the dead, the time of year when it is believed that the veils between the worlds are the thinnest. One tradition is called a "Dumb" or "Silent Supper." Ceremonies are performed in honor of those we love that have passed, and we set a place at the table for the departed with offerings of bread and wine so that the dead may feast, eating in silence and remembering loved ones.

All of this is consistent with the familiar astrological themes of Scorpio, which we associate with psychic powers and communicating with the dead. Indeed, traditionally, this season was also the time of casting divination on the question of marriage, an attribute connected with Scorpio and the corresponding Eighth House and theme of sexual consummation. In the oldest astrology textbook in English, William Lilly suggests that the Eighth House is the house of "death and dowry."

The scorpion symbolism of this sign has been related to sex through the act of the scorpion's sting, which is a pessimistic interpretation. Yet "in Mesopotamian mythology," says the Astrology Encyclopedia by James R. Lewis, "scorpion men guarded the gates of the underworld, which is the original reason Scorpio became associated with death." The snake sheds its skin; all things must change; the cycle of birth and death continues throughout the life of the Earth in an unbroken chain of life and tradition of which Halloween, Samhain or All Hallow's Eve is a defining moment worldwide.

Writes the Wiccan mystic Starhawk, "We are not separate from each other, from the broader world around us. We are one with the Goddess, with the God. As the cone of power rises, as the season changes, we arouse the power within, the power to heal, the power to change our society, the power to renew the Earth."

Additional Research: Jenny Singer and Carol Burkhart


Birthday this Week: The Scorpio Story Continues

If your birthday is any time from now up until the 8th, it's in the final stretch before the event stirring up the astrological gossip of the year, the Harmonic Concordance. This is a highly unusual eclipse involving planets in all the water signs (including yours) and all the earth signs (those with tendencies to be your partners and psychological counter-balancing forces). This eclipse is being hailed as an extraordinarily positive event; it has the look of it. But feeling the world these days, the sense of uncertainty, change, intensity and urgency, the picture is more complicated. By any measure you are sailing into one of the most meaningful years of your life, one in which you will experience of tests of your most basic values, and be given the opportunity to express those values as you grow and change.

The most obvious suggestion of a birthday in this date range is a distinct process involving a specific relationship, one that you're likely to recognize and have an intuitive sense of what to expect. Eclipses seem to deliver surprises, but we always had a feeling what was on the way. Most horoscope astrologers would explain this event as an eclipse in your house of partnerships, Taurus, which is your 7th solar house and opposite sign. The "Scorpio-Taurus" thing is one of those things in astrology that one must stop and notice, and this event throws the spotlight onto it. What kind of thing? Well now. We both know that Taurans or Taurus types -- those who embody deep stability and can withstand tectonic force inner changes -- are among the few people you can really relate to.

Now the world is vibrating, and that old volcano off in the distance is sending up a thread of smoke. The most basic reading of this eclipse portends a marked shift in a partnership. This can arrive on one or more of many levels, including dissolution or renewal, rededication to or liberation from a situation, or a process of growth that's outside your control but with which you need to accept and move along with, or without. Whatever relationship is in question, the likelihood is that it will improve substantially and grow deeper, or you will move on. You're going to win in either case. Eclipses are the clean sweep at the end of a cycle or phase of time; they make sure all the little doggies git along and onto their next stage of evolutionary development.

That would be you, and it would also be the important people in your life. You are obviously going through a deep, monumental and once-in-a-lifetime process of self-discovery. Mars, one of your ruling planets, has been doing some very interesting things in Pisces this year. Other planets are positively churning in Scorpio right now, including Pholus (the second Centaur), the Moon's south node, the Sun, Mercury and much else. But even more interesting activity surrounds your co-ruling planet Pluto, still in Sagittarius, which emphasizes the importance of intimacy with those of your same sex, and those younger than you. Given the importance of Sagittarius in your life, that is, how central the spiritual question is (whether you pipe up about it or not), the real issues seems to be nothing less than your reaching for your highest values in life, your deepest sense of truth, and your knowledge that this world merely rests on an idea.

The question is, which idea?

The whole meaning of relationships, attachment, the need for another person, commitment, stability in a world that always throws change at us (only the style changes on that particular score; this has always been a stressful planet to live on) are all coming up, or available to work with. We are given one 'legitimate' option for relationships, compulsory heterosexual monogamy. This lack of choice and the climate of bigotry surrounding the emotional fascism we endure has an extremely distorting effect on us. This is particularly true given that most of us in actual fact love and are attracted to more than one person, and most of us are to some (often significant) degree bisexual. But we don't typically question the imposition of the compulsory values structure on us, and yet it causes a lot of pain and chaos as we struggle to live outside our own human nature, often extremely lonely in the context of our partnerships.

Without making the pitch for polyamorous relationships, I just want to point out a few problems with compulsory monogamy that may offer you some food for thought right now, and who knows, in typical Scorpionic fashion, you may be six steps ahead of me. First, it's an antisocial way to love. Monogamy is an isolated way to relate to people, having nothing to do with who we have actual sex with. The social rules, what you can say, who you can look at and how you can feel on any given day, are often positively brutal. Another issue I've seen is that monogamy tends to rest on the principle that that people are neither going to change or grow. In purely biological terms, that is death. In psychological terms, it's control. The two are incestuously related.

With Uranus (inventions, group realities, brilliant revelations) about to return to your fifth solar house (Pisces, romance, daring adventures of love, mysticism) in the next couple of months (and for the next seven years), you should be able to solve some of these problems. You are smart, gutsy and you can stand fun. With Mars there right now, you obviously have a burning desire to do so. But I suggest you talk about all of this (and more) directly and honestly with your partners. I suggest that you catapult yourself over any emotional walls you've built around you, that you purge all your secrets (especially the ones you think you've already purged), and meet the people in your life on their side of the great divide so they feel safe having a real conversation with you. In sum, there is no longer any hope that you can control your relationships. But, joyously, there is a ray of faith that you can experience them lovingly and fully.


Your horoscope this week:

Aries (March 20-April 19)
I usually write the horoscope backwards, by which reckoning we would fancy yours to be the most advanced sign of the lot -- tantrums, bravado, your naked butt and all. Isn't it great? Your impetuous view of the world, your stark sense of freedom and justice, the subtle notion that you're the personal axis of the seasons: all perfectly respectable. Individuation is the first and utterly necessary requirement for group consciousness. Before one can say we, one must be able to say me. These days "me" is a different word every time you move your lips. Me is stretching and squeezing and turning wild colors. Imagine what "we" can do.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
It's interesting how appealing marriage remains despite the worsening problems we face as a result of its antique rules. They are not quaint and, when you boil off the broth, they're not exactly loving. I suggest you beware of any circumstance that calls for you to sacrifice yourself, that is motivated by financial interests but appears to be emotional, or involves your giving up your gender role in a way that does not feel appropriate. But there's something bigger. Your cosmic map is speaking of a truly worldly view of what people mean to one another, what they exchange, and how this serves the world. We need to stop calling that a sacrifice.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
You don't need to define success in order to experience it. It would seem, actually, that you're getting hung up on the definition rather than the reality. And it would seem that the reality involves the freedom to choose. Choice implies a measure of freedom, perhaps the only freedom there is. But generally we avoid choice because of the implication of responsibility. If someone else decides, they are responsible. And this can happen in rather covert psychological and emotional ways, usually involving a parent running the show behind the scenes. See that and feel that, and its grip in you will dissolve.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
Much of participating in the healing process of another person involves bearing witness. There are other factors, but acknowledging the feelings, needs and life path of another person is often the most effective way to help speed their process. I think the reason is because so much of what we suffer in life is lack of acknowledgement and affirmation from our early caregivers. It is never too late to have your life affirmed, acknowledged and respected. While it's not possible to make up exactly for what was lost, listen carefully as people around you remind you of what you already know, and remember it's all you need.

Leo (July 22-Aug 23)
I looked at the word for your sign just now and saw "Lego." I just also typed the word "world" instead of the word "word." Your world is made of these little bricks, any of which can stick to another. No glue, no screws and nuts, and no instructions necessary. In fact, no plan necessary. This is the recipe for chaos, and it's also the recipe for art. The two are entirely convertible, which is a good thing in this world where there's so much madness. No matter what you may feel, you're not crazy as long as you can receive love. A little is all it takes.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
Give that raging kid in your heart a lot more room to play than you normally allow. You want experience, correct? What kind of experience? What is yearning for a trip from your mind to your body? What is all fired up for transforming desire into action? Hmm. Whatever it is, count on your brightly-lit presence and visibility to all but guarantee you can attract just the experiences you want and need the most. But prepare yourself for one thing: as you stand at the threshold of action, you're going to need to surrender control in a very meaningful way. Which may be the whole point. And amen for that.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
We tend to play by the rules we were taught. Occasionally a really innovative person rewrites the rules, or breaks them, but most people who do that successfully know the original requirements and thus have an idea what the meaning and impact of their rebellion will be. I see a potential dilemma in your life between playing along with the game or revolting and doing things your own way. You need to do both, I think, particularly in the capacity of your life wherein you're expected to be a leader or person of authority. Authority means the power to authorize -- to give or withhold your blessing. That takes confidence, which is the ultimate revolt.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
Commitments to siblings need to be given top priority right now, and your attention is required at home and not off in the distance. The whole idea of movement has nothing to do with physical motion; you are standing in a gateway and you need do little other than look around at your immediate surroundings, eyes open, filters off, and ask yourself where you are and what you're doing here. Then wait for the answer. Meantime, pick up the phone and call brothers, sisters and cousins in your life and see where the discussion goes. Keep a pad and pen handy, and listen to exactly what they say.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 - Dec. 22)
How you define your relationships matters because that's how they define you. Could I entice you to write a 3,000 word essay called Marriage Myths? The sections would include "Illusions about More and Less Spiritual Relationships," "Marriage and Sacrifice," "How I Spent the Last 30 Years," and "Why I Can't Love More Than I Can Love Myself." You've got a fire under your ass right now, and to put it mildly, the entire cosmos is screaming of change. And waiting for you to answer.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
Much has been said about Chiron and wounding, but I want to propose that Chiron's primary issue involves one's mother. With the Moon and Chiron meeting in your sign right now, a rare depth of feeling into any such situation is available. Tune into this and you'll be able to penetrate the usual layers of inner defenses and questions and reach the essence of the matter, which is that presently you are caught in someone else's limitations. That person's limitations were not self-imposed; they came from somewhere else. You'll likely never know exactly where -- it was a heck of a long time ago. Seeing the pattern matters a lot more than pinpointing the source.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
You are only seeing half of a process that's working in your life. It's got your attention quite nicely, actually, but imagine that there's this screen between you and another aspect of your existence, the other half, really, and on the other side is a double of you living a parallel life. This person has an entirely different perspective: their ideas are not limited by the rules and necessities of the world. They see both sides of the screen; they know what you have to go through every day. But you may be lacking the benefit of knowing they're right there watching. Seeking a few hints from the part of you who knows so much more will help you quite a bit right now.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
Normally astrology would caution against being overly ambitious; understatement is a key aspect of writing horoscopes. It's been a while, but to tell this story we would really need to go back to around autumn 1995, when Pluto moved into Sagittarius. This marked a time of transition from what you could call the seeking phase of your life to the actional phase. You made a commitment, or understood what was always in your heart. In the process, you've actually started to question what you thought was your tragic flaw. Keep asking. There are answers.

You can visit Eric online at PlanetWaves.net. Eric is available for private consultations. For more information, check out his web page or call (877) 453-8265.