Cosmic Confidential: A Future Investigation is the 2010 annual edition of Planet Waves. It includes extended length horoscopes for the 12 Sun signs and rising signs, and more! Pre-order it now.

Saturn is now in Libra, and is approaching a perfect 90-degree angle (a square) to Pluto. This is one of those “something happens” aspects (occurring in three instances over the next nine months). Nothing like this has happened since the challenging events of 2001-2002. There are two dimensions to this astrology. The first is personal, as we encounter what you might call private factors that compel us to rethink the structures of our personal lives, relationships and commitments. We need to evaluate how our relationships are working or not working, and make the necessary adjustments. Second is some unusual turn of events in the world, likely to manifest some time by December. The astrological epicenter is Nov. 15 — the exact day that the first of three squares takes place. This is the latest in a sequence of events that elevate the energy to a wild peak in June of 2010, a time that has the imprint of what everyone has been calling 2012. We are embarking on an extended Sixties-like moment of high energy, adventurous challenges and historical turning points; not, as some are suggesting, the “end of the world.” Yet it is indeed the end of something, and the beginning of something else. Proceed with awareness; you have not been taking all those workshops and reading all those spiritual growth books for nothing.

Aries (March 20-April 19)
Keep your sense of humor; exercising that on a daily basis is more important than going to the gym. Humor is not just about getting a good laugh; it’s about taking a light enough approach to life so that you can see your options, and have a sense of flexibility. That said, the ability to laugh at something means one thing: you’re not afraid of it. You’re being summoned for the first time in years to make enormous changes, and you may indeed be nervous, and reluctant to move forward, lest you make an error from which you cannot recover. Remember that you’re not in this alone. The whole point is that a relationship is getting your attention, as is your sense of priorities for what to do with your life. Most people take these as separate issues. The planets in their courses are giving you little choice but to see these seemingly separate things as one topic: your existence. The meta-theme is maturity: having adult relationships and an adult sense of purpose. Finally, this is not something that might happen in the future; rather, it’s something that’s calling your name right now. You may feel like certain elements in this equation are being dictated to you, and you might be right. If you take a light touch, you will see how many options you really have within reach.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
Do you need to take your life more seriously, or less? The answer is, some of both. They’re not actually opposites. Most things that you think of as opposites aren’t really opposites. Most things that you think of as difficult aren’t really that difficult, but how you apply your mind to the situation is another story. What you usually think of as a mental approach involves getting snagged in your emotions. If you’re in an endless loop of any kind, you can be pretty sure that you’re trying to handle a situation that calls for an analytical approach in a way that avoids real analysis. The ‘more seriously’ piece of the original question involves the dismantling of your sense of being stuck in something you cannot see but can only feel. Then you can reassemble the pieces in a way that actually makes sense. The ‘less seriously’ approach involves letting go of your sense of fate, doom or looming imperatives. Clearly, you’re being summoned to take on a new level of responsibility, and then to take action. Other factors suggest that you examine the beliefs that have so far dictated the course of your life, most of the time below the level of full awareness. Awareness is light, and you’ll know it’s increasing because you will have a greater sense of your power of decision.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
There is such a thing as overfocus. It’s true that concentrating your mental energies is something you must do consciously, but you tend to compensate for this by laying all kinds of rules on yourself and then attempting to follow them like choreography. But the way dancers actually work would serve you much better. Just like a dance routine is composed of many smaller parts that are brought together, improving your mental process is about learning separate elements of something, and the gradual acquisition of discipline. Connect to the creative impulse at the core of what you’re doing; your true motivation. That will make the effort seem worthwhile. I suggest that you be leery of telling yourself you’re doing anything for altruistic or ’service’ purposes, and instead, stay focused on the creative and business aspects of the work. The same would hold true in personal relationships, though there is an added caution here: beware of approaching anyone with a set of expectations about how he or she is supposed to feel, in advance of the experience actually happening. Indeed, be cautious about approaching anything with a set of expectations about how you are supposed to feel. At the moment, your life is about being in the moment, taking a risk on suspending your beliefs about the presumed outcome. Those beliefs are a burden that interferes with your true creative process.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
If you knew how guilty people felt about money, you would be shocked. That’s why they try to get rid of the stuff so fast. Then there’s debt. A colleague in the UK suggested that one of the places that sex energy is being drained faster than we can fill it up is credit card debt. Debt is like negative worth or lack of worth, and at the moment the world is overrun with it. For the next seven months, Mars is going to be taking up residence in your house of self-worth, self-esteem, your financial resources and ‘how you really feel about yourself’. With Leo in this solar house, you’re well suited to have a strong relationship with yourself and a balanced, mutually profitable relationship with others. The issue with Mars here is: how deep can you go, making peace with your existence, your values and your sense of belonging? How useful can you make that value, to yourself and to others? Do you have the guts to make the money you want to make? One of the forms that guilt about money takes is that money is considered ‘unspiritual’, and we’ve all met enough people who seem to demonstrate that quality quite effectively. Yet one theme here is learning that you and nobody else gives the things in your life the value that they have.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
One of your greatest talents is that you’ve learned how to doubt your doubts. That ability has proven useful, as so much of what you were uncertain about in recent months has either revealed itself to have little basis in truth, or has worked out better than you were planning. Even as your confidence and sense of purpose build, you’re still going to need that skill. You have some unusual discretion now, the ability to apply your power in a direct, focused way. At the same time you may run into a few more puddles of self-doubt, particularly about your involvement in a family situation that seems too complicated for your tastes. The key here is to not overreact, or to apply too much strength or force when a little will do just fine. Indeed, you can safely put off smaller actions, solutions or possibilities for resolving things in place of larger ones that come a little later in the month. Something that seems obvious today is still coming into focus. You don’t know details that you cannot quite see yet, but those details exist. Some of them will emerge when an event or circumstance represents the universe making a move; then suddenly it will be much more obvious what you need to do. You can safely wait for any strong emotions or confusion to fully clear before you say or do anything.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
Understanding your obsessive tendencies will be the key to your freedom, and your enlightenment. First, I suggest you see them for what they are, and note the complications they bring into your life: for example, your struggle to let go emotionally, the difficulty you have forgiving yourself and therefore others. Obsession is a quality so inherent in your makeup that you take it for granted, but you also take for granted the damage that it does to the fragile fabric of your existence. Saturn’s presence in your sign the past few years has provided a compelling influence to question why you are the way you are, and why you feel the way you do. Yet another factor suggests that there is a hidden source of energy lurking deep within your makeup, there is a notion of who you are supposed to be. You are trying to live up to this idea, even though you’re not aware of it most of the time. I suggest you bring it out into the open. Perhaps make a scrapbook called The Perfect Me, and collect images and examples of what you are trying to be. This will teach you that your prototype is not really you; it is a concept that was installed into you, and modified over time. This is your moment to take control over the process. If you must strive for a certain ideal, it’s best that it be consciously chosen.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
Self-awareness is the thing. THE thing, as in the VERY thing; the only thing and the thing to value above all else. Nobody is perfectly self-aware, so you can let yourself off the hook for that one. Yet there are those who value the stuff and those who really, truly don’t want to be bothered. Now is the time to bother; to take every step you have to take to hoist that flag and raise it high. Saturn beginning its 30-month journey across your birth sign is some of the best astrological news that has come your way in many years. You have faced challenging transits (as have we all), and while this one will indeed bring its challenges, they are the kind that are worth every bit of effort five times over. Saturn is here to bestow you with one of the most precious gifts of the postmodern age: maturity. Among the very most serious problems our society faces is the collective lack of maturity among its members. This not only leads to people being unable to take care of themselves and one another; it’s contributing to a significant failure of ethics and sense of awareness about the future. All of this and more are the gifts that Saturn is here to offer you; in due time, of course, but that time is close. And what is the cost? Self-awareness.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
You are accustomed to constantly having to adapt to your circumstances; it’s rare enough that your circumstances must adapt to you, but that’s precisely what is happening. You may be thinking, that would be a lot easier, were it only true. Here’s how to help make it true: The first thing you can do is to be clear about your intentions, mainly with yourself, then in any conversation or encounter where you need to state your agenda. Or perhaps the correct word would be understate. The key is to say things once and then allow the energy to align around your goals. Don’t expect anyone to read your mind, and don’t overstate your position. Next, maintain a continuous awareness of how things have been done in the past, including the distant past, and then make conscious, gradual modifications to those methods, never veering far from the wisdom of tradition. You are in the rare position of rewriting tradition, which is best done incrementally, with the awareness that evolutionary steps are what keep the intelligence of the past alive. I suggest you take any opportunity you can to actually feel the strength of your position. If you feel it, others will respond, even those you don’t actually talk to. Your mind reaches to other minds; but among those in your immediate environment, clarity is of the essence; it will be the vector of your true strength.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
Be aware which of the sweeping changes that flood through your life the next month exist in your consciousness, and which of them have a definite source in your environment. There is a valid theory of existence which says that everything the mind perceives begins and ends in the mind, and what we perceive is strictly a matter of interpretation. Let’s take this one two ways; there may be more. First, let’s assume that it’s not true. Let’s assume that there really are elements of existence that come from the outside; over which you have no control, except how you respond. Then let’s assume that the nature of everything you see and experience is strictly a matter of your own interpretation, based on your level of awareness, your prejudices, your personal history and your imagination. (A Course in Miracles sums this up in three words: ‘projection makes perception’.) In the end, the difference between the two viewpoints may be subtle, but I would ask: which gives you a greater sense of influence over your life? Which puts you in the more influential position of co-creator of your existence? Bear in mind, the current dominant philosophy of existence is that only externals matter, and that everyone except the supposedly famous and powerful are victims of circumstance. That is not an option.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
Saturn has moved across the midheaven angle of your solar chart, and later this month will make a high-powered aspect to Pluto in your birth sign. This is your moment to wake up to who you’re supposed to be in the future. Everyone has an image of that, but who exactly comes along and tells you when the time has arrived? Your astrologer, that’s who. In the past, you’ve had transits that have called on you to reach for higher goals. You’ve had transits that have focused your sense of identity. But you have never had a transit like this, and the truth is, neither have most of the people you see walking around on the street. If this astrology is working right, that is to say, if you are responding with awareness to the conditioning forces that surround you, you will be feeling a mix of certain key elements: one of them being a sense of responsibility. Another will be the urgency to rise to the occasion; that is, to be the very best person you can be, under the circumstances of your life and your professional situation. This is a calling to leadership, but the kind that requires you to contemplate every decision carefully, and to make sure that each step you take comes with an actual change in your psyche; actual growth, no matter how challenging that may be.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
Humans learn a bit in school, but mainly we learn from example. One of the most useful methods of example is mentorship. I suggest you take this two ways. One is by working with people far more experienced than yourself, setting aside any notion that you ‘know more’ than they do. This will give you sufficient freedom from your own preconceived ideas to be able to adapt new approaches to what you do. The second is teaching someone younger or less experienced than yourself the basic professional methods that you are developing. You will know you’re doing this right when you are the one learning from your student. It’s not that your student ‘knows more’ than you; it’s that you know enough to learn from those both more and less experienced than you. Advancing your education is a key theme of the next two years of Saturn in Libra, and you’re the one who is in charge of the process. Part of the story involves an exploration of why ethics matters more than anything. There is an emphasis on learning fairness, as a prerequisite of having the additional authority that is going to be given to you after you pass what amounts to a series of personal tests of your integrity. The first of these challenges begins now; and for the moment, the whole process is on the honor system.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
During the past year, you’ve grown increasingly aware of how important your friends are to you. The sense of having old, established friends is vital to your sanity, your sense of personal security, and your ability to get things done. It’s been worth every bit of the effort you’ve put into the relationships. From among those friends, it’s now time to select certain ones as partners in an important series of ventures in both your personal and professional endeavors. Looked at one way, these people will be self-selecting: they’re ones who stick around, who demonstrate their love and loyalty, and most of all, who demonstrate their commitment to growth. Once you apply those criteria, you’re not going to be left with a lot of candidates, but you will have just enough; and certain people you can depend on are about to come out of the woodwork. The feeling you’re looking for in partners is the sense of needing to collectively rise to a challenge; individuals who are moved to action by the times we are living in. Emphasize your encounters with people who are responding in the present, rather than being stuck in the past. Keep your mind focused on this and you will remind yourself over and over to keep your focus in the moment, where it belongs, and where you access your true power over your destiny.

About the Author

Eric Francis is the creator of Planet Waves and author of Book of Blue. He has worked as a professional astrologer and internationally published horoscope columnist since the mid-1990s, specializing in minor planets. He has presented sexuality workshops and written for such publications as the Journal of Bisexuality, Sexuality.org and Loving More magazine. He writes his astrology columns in his fine art photography studio in Kingston, New York.

Aries (March 20-April 19)
The challenge of the coming seasons and indeed years of your life could be stated this way: in order to thrive, you must get your most intimate relationships working in harmony with your most ambitious worldly goals. There are a number of elements to this, one of which is tapping into an unusual sense of mission or aspiration that has emerged in your life over the past year or more. One of the things I’ve learned from my clients is that most of us tend to set our goals too low to be satisfying. What we think of as thinking big is typically another form of thinking little. You are now being invited to think bigger than you ever have before. The second part of this challenge involves the way we conceive of our relationships. Too often they are experiences that work against our overall progress; we employ people in our lives who end up with the role of setting limits on our potential. While it’s challenging to change this assignment, you will soon arrive at a point where it feels like you have no choice but to do so. Here is a key. If you view these as separate missions, they will likely seem impossible. If you reach a point within yourself where you experience them as the same thing, you will find a way.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
Your life is a study in expectations and agreements. We often confuse the two; you would benefit from sorting them out, and replacing the first with the second. It’s challenging to notice when we are acting on the basis of an expectation, or presuming that another person will do so, though this is your first assignment. This takes honesty with yourself, and it will raise the issue of where those expectations came from in the first place; usually they are a lot older than the situation you are examining, and by a lot older I mean decades or lifetimes. Replacing expectations with agreements is more challenging, but it’s the action piece in this equation. Agreements imply that both parties to the agreement actually know what they want — very much opposite the situation than when expectations rule. Step one starts with you, and it involves figuring out what you want; give a voice to those wispy notions and concepts that brew in the back of your mind. Remember, you’re not committing for the rest of your life, only as a medium-range goal to give you a sense of direction. Then get a grasp on what the people closest to you want. Look for the places that intersect; these are the actual points of contact in your relationship; the common ground you both stand on.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
Many seasons of your life have been spent figuring out what was bothering you. This has involved a difficult confrontation with the past, during which you’re likely to have discovered how much emotional baggage you’re dragging around, courtesy of your family and your upbringing. This nagging sense that something was wrong has been the source of so much of your perfectionism. What you’re now discovering is that it’s best to exchange this for other methods of growth that actually get you somewhere. At the moment, it’s equally important that you leave behind the baggage as it is that you leave behind your struggle to sort it out. You’re about to embark on a new kind of challenge: something entirely more creative, and that is obviously beautiful. You crave this with all your heart and soul. How many times have you discovered that analysis only gets you so far? At a certain point you have to pick up the world and sculpt it with your hands, proceeding on the basis of feeling. For the next few weeks, you may still need to iron out your concepts. I suggest you boil what you’ve learned down to a few ideas short enough to write on the wall; something easy to remember, akin to a sharp tool you can hang on your belt and use when you need it.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
Your physical location on the planet is about to come under your own scrutiny. Are you where you belong? Have you ever lived more than 100 miles from where you were born? Does your living space reflect the combination of beauty and high functioning practicality that is one of the defining ideas of your birth sign? Oh, one last question: much of your growth at the moment is focused on relationships, and your evolving idea of what a relationship is. You are poised to pass through a series of experiments that reveal the importance of getting your physical space into alignment with your needs and desires in your partnerships. This means making room in your life for the people you want to be there. In order for you to be comfortable in your own world, you need the people you care about to be comfortable in your world as well. This is not really a matter of “take care of yourself first” but rather one of designing your living situation so that it works for everyone who you want to feel welcome in your environment. Yet the big question, the one of where in the world you actually live, is about to ring the bell. That’s a direct invitation to get out a map and dream a little.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
It really is amazing, once you choose to work out old, crippling fears, just how many you find. Yet it’s more amazing to realize once you start to discover them, how easy it is to let go of them. When you do, the benefit is the release of energy that you can access any time you want or need to. This issue is attached, at the moment, to a particular risk and a corresponding reward. More than ever, you are going to attract what exists on your current level of vibration. If you are fearful, then you’ll attract fearful people and events that threaten your stability. If you set your mind in the direction of growth and evolution, that is what will turn up in the people around you. It’s true that you’re in a phase of what might be called ‘enforced growth’. This is putting many of the established structures and ideas of your life under scrutiny. What you might not be reading about this transit elsewhere — revolutionary Uranus moving through your 8th house of shared resources, opposed by Saturn in your house of personal resources — is that you pretty much get to choose the level on which it manifests; and the way you choose is by how you feel and therefore what you attract to you. Change is inevitable; the form and direction of that change is not.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
You are finally poised to develop a long-term financial strategy. Given the number of banks that have failed this year (and associated problems), you may feel that’s a ridiculous notion, but to take that position would be to once again isolate yourself from your own potential with a negative philosophy. What does not change, no matter what happens to the economy, is that human beings are driven and directed by their values system. They are, that is, if they choose to follow what their values are telling them, and if they don’t they are likely to live in considerable conflict. One of your defense mechanisms is to isolate yourself from the values of others; to keep your own finances in a bubble; and to conduct as little commerce as possible. This is unusual, given the influence of the sign Libra on the money angle of your chart. Your life is about cooperation and an exchange of viewpoints that creates a thriving micro-economy. The defining concept within that cooperation is beauty and balance. This becomes the over-arching theme of your life as Saturn makes its ingress to Libra; the test is not one of productivity, but of creativity. The two are related, but in your particular situation, integrating them both becomes the foundation of the new identity you’ve been working so diligently to create.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
For years, your potential has existed like a mirage. You see what is possible; you feel the strength of your ideas and the need to hold a clear vision for yourself; but often this turns out to be like peering into a different dimension, one that you cannot reach or experience as solid. This is a special kind of torture, but for you, its days are numbered. Here is an astrological secret you’re unlikely to hear elsewhere. Libra is the most potent creative well of the zodiac. Fortunately since everyone has Libra somewhere in his or her natal chart, we can draw on an unlimited battery of innovation and beauty. You have your Sun placed in this sign; you can be one and the same as this creative well, if you allow yourself to go there; and if you allow yourself the permission to take initiative. Saturn is about to enter your sign for the first time in nearly 30 years. This is likely to represent one of the few times in your adult life that you feel like you’re standing on solid ground. Decisions will mean more, and you will finally have a sense of how valuable you are to your relationship partners, business partners and colleagues. Manifesting this will require some elements of letting it happen, and certain elements of making it happen. Trust that you’ll know exactly what to do.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
Your curiosity about people grants you your most dependable interpersonal skills. Now, you are about to turn that curiosity on yourself. The relationship we have with ourselves is the most important one of all, because it grants us the quality that mediates our whole vibrational field. You may soon experience a phase of your life where you pull in and let a number of old associations drop away. I suggest you not fall for the illusion that you are losing anything. Rather, dive into your curiosity about your own inner relationship. This corresponds with a sense of radical independence you may be feeling in the ideas about life that you are developing. You will be able to shift gracefully from the sense that you’re the only person in the world who thinks the way you do, to being someone who knows that first you focus your own mind, then you will meet the likes of others with whom you can share and develop your ideas. The first step in this process is stepping back from any notion of having to fit in, conform, or be accepted by others. I’m sure you would never want to admit that this has been on your agenda, but the moment you let it go you will see how it has dominated your thinking and your choices.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
Here is a brief summary of 2009 for you: the year started and built to an early peak with events that demonstrated both how good and how challenging life could be. There were many times when you felt like it was all too much, and yet the sense that you could create something absolutely new and innovative with your life went off like fireworks. To the extent that there were challenges, those only fuelled your determination to live well in the time and space you are allotted on this Earth. Then somehow many things that had such incredible potential seemed to go into reverse. Certain things hit frustrating delays and others seemed to vanish like smoke, leaving you to wonder whether you had made any progress at all. Somehow your mind is changing about this. You may not be able to document new progress, but the backsliding has stopped, for one thing, and for another, you are starting to feel like you can make some choices that put you back on track. October brings the tipping point; it is the threshold where you regain your confidence in yourself. It is easy to say, “all things in their time,” but it takes wisdom and experience to see and feel this in action. All things in their time — and that time has very nearly arrived.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
If you’re the type of person who is introspective and concerned about your personal growth, you may not count yourself as a Capricorn who is ambitious. I would advise you to reconsider this position, and to embrace the spiritually wholesome nature of true achievement. Here is the defining point, however: it’s not really about you. Yes, you are the spearhead and you will soon emerge as the visionary of an impressive and challenging project. This project has an apparent goal, such as building a skyscraper or creating an art exhibition. Yet there is a secondary goal that’s really the point of the whole endeavor, which is learning how to think in terms of mutual benefit all the time. I am therefore not talking about climbing the corporate ladder or any kind of usual heroism. I am talking about the highly focused path of self-development that you have embarked on since Pluto entered your birth sign. Everything, and I do mean everything, in your life is hooked into this engine of personal growth. Later this month, Saturn is going to cross the achievement angle of your solar chart, which is one of the hallmarks of success. But for a number of reasons, we are not talking about success, but rather about dharma: acting as if to hold the world together.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
It would be an understatement to say that you’ve been living through one of the most outrageous identity crises in the history of psychology. Okay, maybe that’s actually an overstatement, but you know what I’m talking about. There have been so many elements to this, going back so long, you seem to have a) lost track of them and b) grown accustomed to this simply being the way things are. There is something about yourself, essential to this whole process, that keeps coming in and out of focus. It’s like you get it into your vision and manifestation field, then it disappears; then you re-focus, and feel its reality, then it vanishes again. If you study this, you will get a look at how your inner components speak to one another. If you study this over time, you will see how you are gradually integrating aspects of your character that have tended to exist in layers and to act independently of one another, sometimes leading you to make the kinds of strange decisions that can only be accounted for by a lack of self-awareness. You have taken some amazing steps this year to both raise your awareness and integrate many seemingly separate aspects of yourself. As the next few weeks unfold, notice the strange and beautiful feeling emerge that you are one coherent entity, poised to travel a distinct, unique trajectory in life.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
Applying discipline to one’s life is challenging. It’s one thing to hold to a plan; it takes even more tenacity to apply subtle, radical changes in a consistent way, utilizing the quality of structure on the one hand and continuous experimentation on the other; this, in a balanced way. Yet that’s precisely what is necessary when old patterns have taken over: something akin to a conscious, active process of invention. This has been developing on many levels for you, with your charts revealing essentially the same process unfolding in a number of ways. There is the obvious level: the confrontations of Uranus in your sign with Saturn in your opposite sign, which have created some interesting relationship situations for you, wherein you take the role of an agent of change. Yet the real agents of change are working deep within your psyche, in the mysterious angle of your chart represented by Aquarius. That is the origin (in the symbolic language of astrology) of your deepest progress, and the message is: you are involved in reworking and rewriting deep, unconscious patterns of thought and feeling; and that you are reaching a vital conclusion of a long phase of this process. I would repeat, you have not seen the best results of this yet, but as Jupiter begins one final sweep through this territory, you will indeed discover them.

About the Author

Eric Francis is the creator of Planet Waves and author of Book of Blue. He has worked as a professional astrologer and internationally published horoscope columnist since the mid-1990s, specializing in minor planets. He has presented sexuality workshops and written for such publications as the Journal of Bisexuality, Sexuality.org and Loving More magazine. He writes his astrology columns in his fine art photography studio in Kingston, New York.

Aries (March 20-April 19)
You must be strategic in both personal and business plans. Understand your short-range goal, such as where you want to be by the end of the year, and set your agenda accordingly. Do so in the context of your long-range goal, which in the current speed of the world would take you through about December 2011. This may seem like a lot of planning for an Aries. Accept this fact. The influences that are conditioning your life for the foreseeable future are calling upon you to rise to a new level of awareness, competence and deftness that may indeed be unfamiliar to you. Developments are in the offing that you cannot see or imagine, which you are in the position of having to be prepared for. In addition to maintaining a conscious plan or agenda, subject to revision, that preparation might include three basic steps. One, stay caught up on your work. Two, maintain healthy working relationships. Three, strive for efficiency. You need your energy to use wisely, not to waste. Remember that energy comes in the form of ideas, of money, and of many resources that are not exactly money but which may be far more valuable. Your most important resource is your wellbeing. Coming in a close second are the people in your life. Treat them well.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
I don’t blame most people for not pursuing their creative talents as a way to make a living. Yes, our parents usually tried to talk us out of them. It’s also true that developing talent takes a lot of work, and there are absolutely no guaranteed rewards. The rewards for getting an MBA or passing the bar are not guaranteed either, but at least there are people waiting with jobs for those skillsets. Creativity is a total gamble, and taking that risk is associated with plenty of justifiable fear. The only thing is, sometimes one’s sense of necessity far exceeds that fear. The Taurus mind may be the most obsessive of the entire zodiac, and you’ve certainly been ruminating on this issue for a long time, particularly the past month, which caps off nearly two years of simply knowing you must do something better; something more worthwhile with your time and with your talent. I am pretty sure you even know exactly what that thing is and how rewarding it will be. I am not here to tel l you that you will get there; but I am here to tell you that you can get there if you work with a conscious plan, if you strive to understand the nature of your own resistance (which is mostly fear) and most of all, if you want to.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
Some people take their family and its issues for granted. Some people work these issues out in therapy for years, and get nowhere. Others set their intentions, trust themselves and blaze through the past and all its people and themes, and go on not only to lives of achievement but also lives of emotional contentment. I don’t think that one of these has to come at the expense of the other. I would propose a viewpoint where the two support one another mutually. After the equinox as the new season opens up, you’re going to feel a much more palpable sense of calling. There is something in these charts about doing what you need to do, and being willing to do the personal work to get you there. You seem to have started this work, but now you know there is really a much longer agenda than you were originally planning for. This month seems to be wrought with all kinds of loops and minor emotional torments; and one or two truly significant ones. Do the work you need to do. Get the h elp you need, from people who understand these kinds of issues. This will involve understanding why you might refuse to seek assistance, be it practical or directed at inner healing, and not letting that be an excuse.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
Reckon with how powerful ideas are; with how much work they save; and with how good they are. You may not think so, at least not right now. You may not be the best judge. You seem to be working out a complex equation, for which there is no easy solution. It may involve a business, your profession, or something in your community. The issue actually surfaced a year or two ago, but you didn’t necessarily give it a name, or set a goal associated with resolving it. I can assure you that your mind has been working to develop not just solutions but something original through most of this time. That effort is now coming to fruition, though it seems to be preceded by a moment of uncertainty. There are true gems of thought amidst any mental turbulence, overwork or doubt that you may be feeling. You can therefore afford to relax, on several accounts. Trust that you’re making progress; trust that the answers will come to you as you need them. Be particularly sensitive to ideas that see m too subtle to be effective, or so strategically clever that you can’t believe they would work. There are some very good ideas that are in the ‘tried and true’ category. The touch of genius may come as applying an old idea in an original way. It often does.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
Your particular genius with money involves caring about the value of things: and by things, I mean everything, from effort to love to actual cash; from a concept to your value on serving others. You are — or have the potential — to be good with money because you are someone who puts thought into your life and who recognizes that everything and everyone has value. Therefore you survive in tough times, you thrive in good times and you have the potential to do quite nicely all the time. Remember that, and tell yourself a few times a day. We’re all participants in a culture that is sick with greed; you take part as a matter of necessity and in truth as a revolutionary. Events this month and into next month give you a series of opportunities to outsmart some pretty big players in some complex games. They may be the bank, they may be your boss, they may be the stilted values of your parents, or your actual parents. More to the point, you have the ability to put whatever you enc ounter to work for you, though you have to be clever about it. The invention of a lever makes a simple metaphor. It’s hard to roll a boulder; it’s easy to put a lever underneath it and have that do most of the work.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
For a while, no decision may feel like the right decision, and no set of facts may seem to fit the scenario you are in. I suggest you stop looking for any ultimate explanations or solution sets and accept that currently everything is a variable. True, there are X-factors all over the place most of the time, but the current aspects include Mercury retrograding in and out of your birth sign, which will accentuate the effect. The more room you make for things to change not just around you but within you, the more you will be able to profit from those developments. This being said, an observation or conclusion you reached in late August will provide a reference point for what you know to be true, or at least what you are assuming to be true. By a reference point I mean a basic set of facts on which you based a series of derivative ideas or assumptions. I suggest going back to what you were thinking and doing during that timeframe (around Aug. 15 through 18) and considering the various people and situations that you were involved with. There is a phase of history that you want to avoid repeating; recognizing that, knowing and understanding the recent past and what motivated you then will be your first and best ally.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
You often struggle with being influenced by others when you make up your mind, but you’re currently involved in a decision-making process that is pretty much airtight. Those around you might feel a certain distance or alienation as you work through some deep material. I suggest you not chalk it up to Libran indecision if you can’t resolve the matter quickly; this one deserves true contemplation. You’re attempting to get clear on something that may go back decades and is indeed part of your family’s legacy. It’s truly strange when we discover that something that occurred years before our own birth actually affects the way we see and think about ourselves generations later. I would propose that nearly all of our self-concept is the product of a past so distant that we don’t even know when it dates to, much less with whom it originates. Part of the reason why we don’t attempt to work these things out involves the feeling that the past is intractable; that we cannot do anything about it. What you are discovering is that the most meaningful thing you can change is your interpretation of what it means to you, and therefore revise how it is shaping your idea of who you are today. The distant past is always an influence; whether it runs our lives is another story.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
If you shift your awareness regarding a professional question into long-term mode, you’ll have the ability to take advantage of events later in the year and early next year. If you keep your nose to the grindstone and don’t look up, this will not be as easy. I am suggesting specifically that you think ahead and stack the deck in your own favor. Moreover, consider that you recognize that in any situation involving your reputation or the focusing of personal power, there is almost always a setup involved. Very little ‘just happens’. Yes, providence can intervene, and we do seem to be in a moment when pushing pushes us backwards. Clearly, this is a risk. You need to use your mind, and you need to think in more than one dimension. I’m suggesting something gentle, which is maintaining awareness of the diversity of factors necessary in attaining success. Closer to the point is having a clear enough definition of success that you know it when you see it. The angle you are working for is quite specific in nature; not the success of a new car, but rather of knowing that you have your role to play in the cosmic drama, and that you are playing it well.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
Progress has been slow in coming this year, while many other factors seem to be moving out of your control. Certain activities that have gone well on one level may have produced less than satisfactory results. I suggest you keep your faith. You are now in what I would call the ‘finishing phase’ of a long process of self-reinvention. You are a person of the world, so your self-reinventions need to be something other than purely introspective or oriented on growth; there has been plenty of that, anyway. What you want are results. You’re in a phase now requiring your undivided attention if you’re going to collect the gains on so much effort. This will call on you to focus on your single most important objective; that, in turn, will call on you to figure out what that objective is. This may seem strange — putting the goal at the end of what may indeed have been a two-year process. Think of it this way. What you’ve mainly created for yourself are viable options. This month you will get to test them out one at a time, and by the time Mercury stations direct on the 29th, make a choice that will not feel like a sacrifice. More accurately, it will feel like a discovery.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
Most breakthroughs are mental or emotional. They don’t actually involve things in the physical world, and when they do, the change is in the mind. Some of these changes come over many long evolutions; others come with what seems like a quantum jump to another dimension. You are carrying plenty of tension right now; so is the world. There will be times this month you feel like you’re at a snapping point, like you’re carrying the weight of the world or like a decision you need to make has much greater consequences than anyone knows. It is true that so much that you’ve been working toward has the opportunity to come to fruition in the coming weeks, but it’s an odd-feeling kind of progress, and it’s likely to be preceded by a measure of real discomfort. The key will be to persist, but to persist gently. At times you will need to know when to apply less pressure to the situation or to count a reversal as a kind of progress because of the opportunities it reveals. The breakthroug hs over the next few weeks will arrive mainly in the form of what you learn from challenging circumstances but at what turn out to be opportune times.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
Once again, the two planets that are involved with your sign are approaching to an exact opposition. This would be the Saturn-Uranus opposition, which was exact for the first time on Election Day 2008. Most interpretations you read will describe this as a clash of energies; to me it’s about a synthesis. Here’s my take. You’re an innovative person, and you constantly run into resistance from people who want life to be like it was yesterday. Of course, were you not so focused on progress you would not encounter this, but that’s not your karma. The problem is that it rarely comes down to a real conversation about what was, what is, and what can be. Now the sky comes into focus where just such a conversation can happen. It may not be easy and you’re going to need to keep your head. Plan for nothing to be resolved for a while, but also prepare for all the necessary facts and viewpoints to come out. You will learn a lot, and discover more than once how people whose views differ from yours can make your own position stronger.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
Aspects that have been unfolding for nearly a year involving your sign and your opposite sign, Virgo, are particularly personal, and that may mean that the stress has been manifesting as an emotional condition. You have been a rolling stone; you want progress and you want it now. If you want progress, I suggest you be content, at least, with change. One implies the other; improvement implies movement. Through this process you’ve encountered one person after the next who seems intractable. It’s not that they desire stability as much as they seem to be making a case for being stuck. You are mainly what they are using to help themselves get unstuck: and you’ve learned to watch where your energy goes and why, because part of being stuck is that you get to skim off of the energy of everyone else while taking exceedingly few chances. I suggest you think of this as a dialog rather than as a power struggle. Certain individuals in your life who have been obsessed with the past are a bout to figure out that this is serving nobody. You, in turn, will figure out that it really does pay to give the people you love the benefit of the doubt.

About the Author

Eric Francis is the creator of Planet Waves and author of Book of Blue. He has worked as a professional astrologer and internationally published horoscope columnist since the mid-1990s, specializing in minor planets. He has presented sexuality workshops and written for such publications as the Journal of Bisexuality, Sexuality.org and Loving More magazine. He writes his astrology columns in his fine art photography studio in Kingston, New York.

The Planet Waves Midyear Horoscope Edition by Eric Francis is ready. Here is product and signup information. And we’ve reduced the price of Next World Stories, which is now just $24.95 for all 12 signs.

Aries (March 20-April 19)
In our society we don’t generally see the ambivalence we have around the concept of ‘friend’. We accept that friends might betray us, hold us down, con us out of our values and enforce the laws and expectations of our parents. The past year of your life has had, as a dominant theme, redefining the concept of friendship. Events this month invite you to look directly at the shadow side of that concept, and give it a name. Look at the ways that codes of conduct are enforced; expectations are placed on people; and the harsh punishment for daring to exceed the limits that others place on themselves and try to enforce on everyone else. The thing you may fear the most, being an outcast, is at the moment your most potent ally. Before we can actually accept ourselves and be accepted, we have to confront this one. Think of the alternative: you spend your life, in ways direct, subtle or both, avoiding any possible situation where you might potentially face rejec tion. And rejection for what? For being who you are. The result of this would be a life of pretending to be someone else. It worked for a while, but it’s not going to work any more.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
I don’t think we can ever question the theme of self-esteem carefully enough. First a simple definition: self-esteem is how we feel about ourselves that influences every other aspect of existence, what we do, how we feel, how we relate to others and how we judge our worth. Putting it mildly, this has been a theme for you lately: specifically that you seem to have two entirely different opinions of yourself, that you try to maintain simultaneously. What tends to happen is that you alternate from one value system to the other; one judgment or evaluation to the other. Lately the split grows worse if you aim your ambition upward; in a sense this inner division is revealed when you aspire to something better than you currently have. This does make sense; if you want something better you’re going to tend to evaluate whether you deserve it or not. I’m here to tell you that one side of the story is not inherently true. It was taught to you initially, and you continue to teach it to yourself: this, through any experience of guilt. If you experience guilt, you can be sure of one thing — you are responding to someone’s early conditioning. You are playing back an old tape that says you’re powerless; and it will help if you recognize this fact and see if you can determine who put it into you. Then, take it as a question rather than as a true statement.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
I’m sure things have gone weird more than once with Mars slowly working its way across your birth sign. Odd bouts of panic, conflict, doubt, guilt and confusion are all potential developments. This is the necessary result of finally reaching for your will, your intention, your voice. If, every time you reach, you get psychic blowback, that’s not a very good advertisement for continuing the endeavor; I am here to offer you some encouragement. I won’t call the blowback a natural result, but it is a consequence of purging unnatural, self-defeating ideas. It is these concepts that exist at the core of your extremely restless inner dialog, which appears to be coming to a peak in these very days. You may rightly wonder how you can think in the much greater concepts that attract you if you cannot settle a simple score within yourself. This is the issue you need to put to your advantage. It’s not that you resolve this and then move on to a perfect life; it’s that you work with your conflict and your tendency, subtle or not, toward cruelty to yourself, and explore this with the full awareness of your mind and body. Asserting your will is not an option. If this has consequences, they must be dealt with directly, and in this case, directly means constructively. Here is a clue: you are much bigger than any conflict you perceive.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
Part of how you measure your value is your value to your community. Perhaps you’ve never made this a conscious process; it may be lurking in a back room. It may be hiding behind other ideas about relationships, which tend to be dominated by the one-to-one special relationship; those arrangements rarely make room for a greater level of commitment or responsibility in life. Significant sharing is presumed to end with the significant other; if there is not a significant other, the search for one generally consumes any energy not required to acquire food, rent and getting around. The time has arrived to think bigger: to see yourself as part of something larger than you are, but as an essential part. This theme has been growing in intensity for many months. You’ve experimented with methods for going forward; now it’s time to investigate what is blocking your way. Consider your most intimate relationships carefully. Is the person you must be in those relat ionships a big enough person to contribute to the world around you? Is that value shared and supported as part of the culture of the relationship? And if it’s not, why not? Relationships are based on two things: shared values, and trust; which in turn facilitate an honest exchange. Settle for nothing less.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
Maintain your focus clear through the end of your current agenda. Don’t let yourself be distracted, even if you get the feeling you have to be overly narrow in your approach. Set aside everything unnecessary, or that does not support this single goal that you know is dear to you. The piece where actual progress occurs happens after you feel and confront the resistance to the very progress you are trying to make. That resistance may feel like doubt; it may feel like you’re making the wrong sacrifice of certain other goals; you may be questioning whether you’re approaching your objective with your usual positive attitude. There is a double ending here: by practicing a kind of over-focus (that by the way is a therapy term used to describe people who take things a bit too seriously) you pass through a narrow mental opening and come out in a different place with a new goal. I suggest you be both sensitive to this transition, and welcoming when it occurs. This is a fairly typical step in any creative process. The time spent on the prior activity is never wasted; the information you are gaining right now is precious; the skills you are acquiring will reincarnate with you from goal to goal. Keep your focus — whether what you’re planning seems like it will take days, months or years.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
You are entering the final push in a process that has taken you a couple of years to set into motion; and to establish the validity of, in your own mind. You may need to check your method and infuse a new idea or two. In fact, by the time you’ve already moved on into the future, you will have already done so: that is what constitutes moving on. As usual, the idea or seed of action can come from you, or it can come from circumstances around you. You currently are in possession of the idea. This could even be called original. The meaningful thing is that it comes from inside you. I cannot overemphasize how important this is, particularly since you are surrounded by so many people who are extremely powerful in their innovations, concepts and creative talent. The value is to your self-respect, which is your key to any future collaboration. You seek stability, but that is not really the answer; what I suggest you seek is a sense of movement and innovation that is self-activating and has sufficient momentum to match the energy of what enters your awareness from outside. You’ve yet to learn that you are as brilliant as the most talented and ingenious people in your life. Events this month may not prove the point, but they will give you sufficient clues to do so yourself.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
The privilege of exploring a creative passion is countered by the necessary risk that you will encounter shadow psychic material. This is the vital difference between creative process and a hobby. Creative process turns shadow material to fuel; art would go nowhere without pain, doubt and deep self-reflection. The reward is that you get to process these emotions, on the spot, into beauty. This is the part not to doubt, and the part where trust is essential: stick to the process and let yourself be free of any concerns about the potential results. From the look of your charts, you won’t be able to see those results for what they are for a while: they will slowly pour out over the next two to four seasons. The simple key to this process is embracing points of darkness rather than avoiding them. By doing this you will see what they are made of; but the most significant change that will occur is the fixed mental patterns that are the single most signific ant block to your free expression of your ideas, your sexuality and in truth your sense of personal identity. Exploration of the kind I’ve described above is designed to do one thing, mainly, which is to teach you the kind of spontaneity without which true self-expression verges on impossible.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
Does it have to be that in every arrangement someone comes out ahead and someone comes out behind? Yes, if you consider no other possibilities; or if you’re content to live in a world where this is the first and only rule. You see alternatives to this, but I suggest you consider the reasons why they are less than appealing. Look carefully at the deeply rooted notion of competition, and consider why you retain any vestige of it in your heart. One possible reason for it is a sense of entitlement. I recognize that in a capitalist society we are all seemingly inbred with this attribute, but it’s a good idea to take out that part and put it on the workbench. Is it really sustainable? Does it even work? Then there is the way that competing makes us feel alive; but this is a substitute for actual achievement, which tends to stand apart from all competition. Finally there is personal insecurity, which we are taught to compensate for by figuring out how to te ll ourselves we’re better than others. This does little other than reinforce the belief that we are somehow less; that we are undeserving of the most basic attributes of existence rather than ‘being the best’. You don’t need to be the best: you need to be you, which fortunately you already are.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
Part of why you’ve been living in a state of potential more so than a place of accomplishment involves seeing the larger implications of your ideas, your efforts and your dedication to a healing process. The most noticeable results will come during the next year or so, but you’ve now got a chance to take a concrete step toward something you recognize. You need to think about whatever it is you’re doing as having implications further from home. It’s not a stretch to say there is clearly an international angle that opens up later this month; or it will open if you knock on that particular door. This may involve a specific person, location or point of interaction, rather than a general idea or approach, though in any event something that opens up around the time of the Leo New Moon on the 20th. It may seem odd or overly restricted at first; your idea may seem to be reduced down to a fragment of its original form. Think of it as a formula: reduce before you enlarge. Get a small part of the process right before you move onto reproducing it in a larger way. Keep track of your seed idea, and remind yourself again and again what it is. An idea is something at the essence of one’s motivation or effort; as you experiment you will have different notions of what it is. They all have something in common.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
You have returned as far back to the beginning of a process as you can; you are poised at a point of origin. Stay there for a while; look for the thought that got you started, the idea that reminded you that you could renew your entire existence, and focus on that idea. Notice your impulse to evolve and grow, notice your willingness to change and more than anything feel the passion that is swimming at the center of all of this. As you go through this, be mindful of the values that guide your life from day to day, in ordinary consciousness. Be aware of your routines; the ways you respond to yourself and to others; notice how you feel every time you handle money. Notice what you are and are not willing to invest in, particularly as relates to yourself. You are dealing with two distinct layers of who you are. One is deep at your core. The second involves a layer where everything is or was imposed on you. Your core layer is far stronger, more informative and more likely to get results, but you have to work with the process of learning and teaching in the mundane sense, because so much of your energy is trapped in what I will call unquestioned values. You tend to assume things must be a certain way, in denial of another property, something so much more potent and authentic: but so much more is possible.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
Continue to inventory what has shaped your psyche and how it continues to do so. Many people go through existence as if how they are stands without a cause. Cause and effect are inseparable, and if you want to understand the effect, look for its origin. It will become so obvious at a certain point soon that if you’re not seeing it you really don’t want to. The issue may be connecting a particular result with a specific root source; the link will be made by your intuition and verified by your intellect. One reason you want to observe and heal this issue is that you feel so much more potential within yourself than you are able to access. You feel the grandeur of your mind, and then it seems like something intractable is in the way. It’s not intractable as long as you recognize that you don’t need to become anything different than you are; rather you need to identify and come to terms with what is not you, and the effects that it’s having on yo u. The karma it would be most helpful to witness is how your own thought patterns create, reinforce and in a sense blind you to anything besides a certain kind of negativity that is entirely, as in 100%, unnecessary. This same cosmic property can inform you that your creative and loving thoughts can have just as powerful results; but the results are far happier.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
Wouldn’t it be beautiful to live in a world without betrayal? You can, but you have to hack into the code of a psychological pattern that’s in a blind spot of your awareness. You don’t need to take this personally: it’s a pattern in society, though it would appear that this thing we call society has a diversity of microcosms that reduce down to groups, families, couples and the people who interact with them, and finally the shape of an individual’s mind. If you believe the research of a therapy process called Internal Family Systems, our minds represent a model of our family of origin, which is based on a model of society; we carry around the whole thing. It may sound like a lot of responsibility, but the beauty of this condition is that we have access to the deepest levels of programming if we are willing to see the inner-outer connections, and go in and make the adjustments. You can afford to be daring now. You can take the risk of leading with lov e and seeing what happens when you allow yourself to feel in an expressive way. Your love is bigger than anything that it might encounter; it’s more powerful than any form of culturally engrained negativity, and can handle any potential other than love. Trusting this is your bridge to freedom.

About the Author

Eric Francis is the creator of Planet Waves and author of Book of Blue. He has worked as a professional astrologer and internationally published horoscope columnist since the mid-1990s, specializing in minor planets. He has presented sexuality workshops and written for such publications as the Journal of Bisexuality, Sexuality.org and Loving More magazine. He writes his astrology columns in his fine art photography studio in Kingston, New York.

Dear Friend and Reader:

This season we have two New Moons in the sign Cancer, the second of which is a total solar eclipse, and two penumbral eclipses of the Moon (each at the time of the next two Full Moons).

This highly unusual combination of solar/lunar events will seem to spin the world on its finger. The first Cancer New Moon coincided with the Cancer ingress of the Sun by one day, on Monday, June 22 (the Cancer solstice). This was conjunct the asteroid Vesta, the revered erotic high priestesses of Roman mythology.

The second Cancer New Moon is a total solar eclipse in the last degree of that sign on July 21, which will be covered shortly in a Friday edition of Planet Waves Astrology News.

While not an eclipse, this week’s Cancer New Moon is no ordinary lunation, arriving close to the solstice and consequently touching the Aries Point in a square aspect. Energetically, it is very close to an eclipse, in part because it sets off the degree of a powerful total solar eclipse that occurred on June 21, 2001.

All told, this is astrology that pushes us into an acceleration curve. You will need to devise strategies for feeling like you are in control of your life. You probably are, but the feeling that you are not may stalk you at times.

In the background is the feeling of reaching for deeper and more meaningful connection to the larger world. The sign Cancer is one that is associated with pushing our way into physical incarnation, which we do mostly with our feelings. Yet Vesta teaches an element of detachment, as if we are being called upon to express devotion without much promise of a result.

Apropos of Vesta, I would be cautious about offering yourself up for too much sacrifice, and I suggest you keep questioning the whole concept, which the Course in Miracles tells us is the one and only thing standing between us and our freedom.

Aries (March 20-April 19)
You may not be able to get your emotional needs met right away, but you’re in an unusual position to find out what they are. I suggest you put some energy into considering your feelings carefully, though the real grounding comes first from being explicit with yourself about what is important to you. The next step in the process is understanding how it came to be that you have so many injuries associated with the things you hold to be the most valuable and precious. You know your needs are simple enough. But there seem to be so many social pressures that pull you in other directions or set limits on your happiness that it’s necessary to look at the connections to the larger world around you. For example, do your relationship ideas really come from you? Do others support you in your desires, or do they enforce society’s expectations? Are you willing to push people whose friendship you depend on, or do you generally take a more passive approach and keep quiet about the most sensitive subject matter in your life? Many factors point to how the time to have a new policy has finally arrived, particularly if you want to make your way toward healing the inner divisions that stand between you and your happiness.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
If you’re going to keep looking over your shoulder, make sure you’re also looking ahead. I’m not sure the past feels more appealing, but due to its complexity it may be more compelling, at least for now. Also, it seems to be a known factor, whereas the future seems to lack this quality. I would propose you know less about the past than you need to know, and you know more about the future than you’re letting on. In any event, I suggest that you build highly conscious relationships to both. However, this very moment is the one that’s calling for your attention. You’re at a tricky spot in your personal growth and in your personal healing journey. You may be discovering that you carry your personal story with you everywhere you go. You contain every relationship, and the paradoxes it arrives with. You contain every potential as well. The ongoing choice you have is which internal factor you identify with, paradox or potential, and how you draw information from either side of the equation. Though this choice often masquerades as ‘dealing with the past’, it’s much more about how we handle the emotions that our memories and history are stirring up. The question for you remains, as ever: to dare, or not?

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
A vitally important subject that you’re probably not talking about is showing up as insecurity or an unusually strong self-critique. You may fear that if you open up your mouth and say the wrong thing, or reveal something about yourself that’s too deep, you’re going to have irreversible consequences. You have so many needs that you keep secret, yet you feel like you have so much to express. What exactly is stopping you? Well, it’s a particular kind of urgent fear, mixed with a tinge of grief. I would propose that this is the chance of a lifetime: to have something you say actually make a difference in the world, and in your life. This topic relates to the women on your father’s side of the family, and how their journey has impacted your life and influenced who you’ve become. They experienced things in other times and places that have as much of an influence on you as anything in the room with you now. You seem to know intuitively what this is about, though you have little in the way of proof; only a complicated set of feelings that are aching to be worked out. In the most immediate sense, it all comes down to one question, which is: do your desires matter? If the desires of others did not matter, why should yours? There is an answer to that question.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
A great deal will hinge on a single fact. You may well know the fact, and whether you take it into consideration is part of the issue; the rest involves how you apply it strategically. Pay attention to what you think is too trivial to make a difference. Look off to the sides of your consciousness. Listen to your intuition and your dreams for clues. As you maintain vigilance for this one seemingly small thing, you’re going to come into a lot of other data, and you need to pay attention to that as well. Live as if there is no such thing as a secret, particularly from yourself. I know plenty of other people live as if what they don’t admit to themselves doesn’t matter, but this has never been a luxury you could afford. Part of what you are looking for involves some hint from yourself about what you want the very most from life, and by that, I mean your life as an experience that nourishes you in the deep way that you nourish others. The issue seems to surround a fear that there exists some inner block too intractable to ever resolve. It’s usually considered simpler to pretend that it’s not really your most profound dream. In one sense, this is the story of our times, but it doesn’t need to be the story of your times.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
Once I was listening to a speech in Harlem, and whoever was talking was doing an excellent job of explaining a complex situation; and someone in the audience called out, “Break it down!” The speaker was taking apart mystifying concepts and revealing them as the simple truths they possessed. Hearing analysis of ideas presented as something to get turned on about was eye-opening for me as a writer. Most of the writers whose work you read are more often ordered to keep it down to 1,200 words. I don’t suggest you do any such thing. Certain complex aspects of your life are beginning to reveal their elements. They don’t seem so daunting when you see them in pieces, or in layers, rather than as one mass. You’re certainly being assisted by people around you who are willing to analyze and account for their own complex minds. Bear one thing in mind, however. One or more key individuals in your life is being provoked by a force they don’t understand to reveal more than they normally would. Though this may qualify as ‘too much information’, I don’t suggest you respond that way. What they are revealing about themselves affects everyone; it is tribal property and deserves to be honored both as an individual process and as part of a necessary collective one.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
If only you could get your relationships to do what you want them to do. But here is a question: are you willing to do what they want? I would think the feeling, as in most things relational, would need to be mutual, and mutual has been something that has not exactly worked out as well as you need in recent years. You seem to have a set of minimal, rock bottom requirements, and you can’t wonder why creating something so basic is fraught with so much challenge. The people who approach you often have various wild ideas that not only seem untenable, they threaten your delicate sense of stability and moreover, your predictions of the future. You tend to steady yourself with mental constructions that are not as solid as you think; when you get to a point where you feel some semblance of balance, it often turns out to be a kind of theory that can be shaken by another theory. You will find real stability as you embrace your process of coming to terms with yourself, your intentions and your deepest needs. But there is something else. Though few people are willing to come out and say it, the older models of relationship are not what’s going to get us into the future. Something else will, and part of what you are doing is helping co-create precisely that.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
All careers involve service, but the question is to whom, and for what purpose. Then there is the bigger issue. Though we often speak of this, we rarely pull it off: the need to serve our own creative needs in a way that blends with the needs of the larger community. There are very few people whose daily work involves experiences that provide nourishment and fulfillment to both sides of this equation. We might wonder why this is so difficult, but the coming season presents an opportunity for you to align with just such a purpose. What is not often said is that the purpose starts with your own mission. It’s about abandoning every sense of ’should’ and every false prophesy that was given to you. We are almost always told that the one thing we need or want to do is the one thing that’s not going to work. The formula, basically, amounts to this: What you are the best at, or the most devoted to, is the point of compatibility with the world around you. The difficulty is getting over the belief that precisely the opposite is true. There’s another challenge in that to do something even vaguely original, you’re the one in the position of building a structure around your intentions. Get used to the idea, and sketch your plans. One basic concept is enough for now.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
The planets seem to be playing an odd game with you. You keep seeing yourself in someone else, then you morph into them, then you morph back — as if you’re having both sides of the relationship yourself. (Note to Taureans, this may apply to you as well, and I suggest that Scorpios check in with the Taurus entry.) There is an often-described mirror effect in relationships, and it’s going to be having some decidedly unusual effects this month. They all involve not just your ideas about relationships (which, in our society, are usually based on too much unfounded theory and not enough action) but also your concepts of sex and of gender. You not only contain your opposite, you are your opposite. I suggest you work with any question of relationship as an inner phenomenon as well as an outer one. You can start with the most pressing questions that have affected your relationships over as long back as you’ve noticed the pattern. How would anything you’re experiencing in relationship to another person, particularly where sex is involved, translate to an inner emotional or psychological dynamic? There is more to this question than you may imagine, particularly as you aspire to the Holy Grail of sex: experiencing it as a spiritual phenomenon that draws all people to one common ground. Not two people: all people.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
Let’s talk about sex as an essential form of nourishment. It serves many other functions, and only rarely do we come around to this extraordinarily basic one. Parallel with this is a need for sexual healing that we all have, and that we tend to avoid. Our issues can seem so old and intractable that there is little hope of ever resolving them. Who, exactly, could help us? Even most therapists have no concept of how to work with deep sexual themes; so how could we expect someone we meet in a social environment to do so? I suggest you start by being open to the possibility. One clue I can offer you is that sex and sexuality must be considered outside the context of a relationship commitment or relationship model. Sex and relationships are almost always conflated in our society, and this is an intentional result of the most carefully cultivated social engineering program in Western history. While the two often arrive together, to make any progress on healing either, I believe that it’s necessary to handle them separately. The first barrier that nearly everyone has to go through in dividing them is their own guilt/shame complex. When you get there, don’t stuff it under the bed, or under your awareness; leave it out in the open, where healing is possible.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
Others are willing to give, to share, even to make sacrifices for you: as long as you are willing to be influenced by them. That influence may be profound. Yet in order to offer you any gifts, blessings, favors or a sense of authentic contact, bear in mind that they too must open up and be vulnerable as well. We could say that the planets this month and indeed the rest of the year portend a mutual opening, a desire to connect and the ability to create a common language. The communication factor is paramount now, and that involves developing the willingness, and the ability, to communicate about the most taboo topics. These have a tendency to be self-concealing; our lack of comfort and familiarity with them usually makes for short conversations, when long ones are called for. We also think we know a lot more than we do. Most women will tell you that most men have little interest in going down this kind of introspective path, and to the extent that this is true it’s going to take all of us to create space for the conversations that need to happen. At the bottom of this is a radical reformation of your values system that is eventually going to affect all aspects of your life. But the foundation is this: If you want to cultivate true self-esteem, start with how you feel and what you believe about your sexuality. Question everything.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
Sometimes in extraordinary times, life isn’t so extraordinary. The astrology certainly has been, and as you know it’s been focused on your sign through much of the year and in particular the past month or so. To be so up close to the Aquarius alignment of Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune, which is still cooking and will be cooking through the year, may feel like living underneath a spiritual microwave tower. The intensity of the Aquarius alignment is dropping off for the next few months, though as other planets make aspects, it will have little surges. This is likely to be more pleasant weather, though soon enough other factors (such as the next rush of Saturn opposite Uranus) will have you on your toes again. Why are you going through all of this, and will it ever end? You don’t want ‘it’ to end. What I suggest you aim for is to vibrate faster than the energy is coming at you, or rising up from inside you. This stretch of your life is about creating energetic mastery over your senses, your intentions and your ability to make choices. Ask yourself what you need to feel better. When in doubt, make a decision. If after a reasonable test that didn’t work, make another decision. Keep worry, regret and boredom as far out of the picture as you can. Just keep deciding.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
The Sun’s ingress to your empathic water sign Cancer will come as a relief, and with a dash of faith, open some doors for you. On many different levels you’ve been spreading your psychic wings; yet at the same time, you’ve been processing a lot of feelings, data and karmic material. This has made it difficult for you during the past few weeks to get any emotional grounding. The planets are now providing a gush of water and direct attention. They’re also reminding you that if you want satisfying contact, with yourself and with others, you need to tend the space constantly. Start by keeping your physical space as impeccably clean as you can. Listen to your emotions for signs of when you are feeling trust or mistrust; when you identify a need; and when it’s appropriate to take a chance. I suggest you make a yoga of taking risks without the expectation that any one of them will work out — just that it’s worth trying, if for no other reason than without reaching out you can be sure. Part of the flame you’re being called upon to tend involves balance; it involves being aware for when there is reciprocity in a relationship, and emphasizing that experience above the others that may seem to be available. The results, as always, will speak for themselves.

Pre-Order Your Special Midyear Horoscope Edition

I am currently preparing a midyear horoscope special edition that will cover all 12 signs with an introduction. These are extended horoscopes for the individual Sun and rising signs that look closely at the astrology of the [Northern Hemisphere] summer and early autumn. They also work great for those down on Oz, South Africa and New Zealand, like all our products. We are offering packages of Aries through Virgo, Libra through Pisces, or all 12 signs. The report will be published July 1. Here is a more focused description of the project and why it is special.

About the Author

Eric Francis is the creator of Planet Waves and author of Book of Blue. He has worked as a professional astrologer and internationally published horoscope columnist since the mid-1990s, specializing in minor planets. He has presented sexuality workshops and written for such publications as the Journal of Bisexuality, Sexuality.org and Loving More magazine. He writes his astrology columns in his fine art photography studio in Kingston, New York.

The great god Mercury, messenger, trickster and the planet of Hermes (one of the founders of astrology) stations direct in Taurus on Saturday, May 30. This occurs while we are in the midst of the triple conjunction that offers us the opportunity to shape and recreate our world. Everyone agrees that things need to change both on the planet and in our personal lives; we are standing in a vortex where that change is not only possible (that’s always true) but readily accessible.

An extremely rare, indeed, almost impossible alignment is now taking place in Aquarius, and involves Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune. This once-in-a-lifetime event reaches its first peak through late May and into June, and its energy will be available well into 2010 before it begins to trail off. Dive into the energy while the conjunction is in the flush of its youth. This conjunction is about accessing creative energy on multiple levels, drawing from a deep spiritual source in a way that is real — not abstract or intellectual (like most of our spiritual stuff).

Because the main activity is in Aquarius (in a close aspect to the Galactic Core), we are experiencing a collective shift that is changing the rules of society as we experience them. We have a cosmic opening to explore who we are in the context of the people around us. The key to this process is visioning, visioning, visioning; then stating your intentions to the world out loud; and then taking action. Delay only as long as it takes to align with your long-term vision and your sincerity.

Aries (March 20-April 19)
You’ve been blessed with such unusual social penetrating power, it’s as if you had a backstage pass to everywhere — and if you haven’t noticed, you still do. The key now is being selective where you go and what you do with that privilege. The depth of this new power gives you more than you’re likely to be noticing. Consider how the patterns of the society around you usually dictate the course of your life, and by ’society’ I mean your friends, their friends and the big world. In all these ways you have unusual mobility right now. Yet this applies to levels of your existence that are normally invisible. In truth, a universe of potential is opening up for you. The way to activate that potential is by focusing on specifically what is the most important to you; and by this I mean making a conscious effort to identify your deepest and most meaningful priorities, then sticking to them. It would make no sense to squander these opportunities on something you don’t really want, but I must caution you because that’s so inherent in human nature. Yet guilt, peer pressure (including in primary relationships), conditioning, fear, shame and lack of awareness, can make focusing on what you want seem like a very big deal. So the question is, given the opportunity to go beyond these things, would you?

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
Mars has entered your birth sign, which is putting some fire in your belly. I trust you will give that famous Taurean complacency a run for its money. I know a lot of people born under your sign, and I do mean know and love. They all admit the same thing: it’s difficult to make changes. The comfort zone can feel like climbing out of a canyon. On the most basic level, Taurus grounds stability for the whole astrological system. Yet deep beneath the crust of the Earth is a tectonic power that you know you have, but rarely tap into. That strength would enable you to make vast changes as if this were no big deal at all. What I believe entices you to keep things stable, is less about fear of the future and more about an attachment to the past. But fear plays a role you need to address. On and off for the past several months, you’ve had a tour of what tends to freak you out. There’s another aspect to fear, however, which is feeling the emotion but losing touch with what creates it. Here is the key to your astrology this month: use fear as a source of energy. Go right into it and confront it directly; or let it propel you to make the decisions that you need to make. If fear is not an issue for you per se, then make a list of your perceived limits and, one by one, take them out.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
Often people try to be spiritual without addressing this elusive thing called the unconscious. But since it’s unconscious, it’s understandable how we might not be conscious of it. At the moment, you seem to be waking up to this level of awareness, which most would regard as deep, dark and too complicated to be much fun. Yet awareness of this dimension is precisely how we grow. It cannot be taken in especially big chunks, though at the moment if the unconscious is a country, you now have access to the equivalent of a major city. Taking this equation in parts, consider that we usually deem spiritual growth being more open to love; and this, most people struggle with. But who in a spiritual process would show reverence for the darker emotions? Usually the first impulse is to get rid of them. So what might you be encountering for the next few weeks? One is attachment. Beneath that breezy personality of yours, you can cling tightly, and that has a way of driving people out of your life. Another is a fear of change that seems to directly contradict the breezy, open-ended way you prefer to live. The two are related, and if you can get sight of that relationship and acknowledge it honestly, a dimension of love will open before you even know what happened.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
In a world where people try to impress others with how many Facebook friends they have, I am here to remind you that popularity is not what you need, and it’s not what matters. The only, and I do mean only, thing you need, at least as far as I’m concerned as an astrologer, are clear agreements. An extremely popular New Age philosophy has grown up around the concept of ’sacred contracts’. Your astrological moment now points to an opening for the energy of grace. This quality has the power to dissolve old agreements and help you form new ones that are far more humane in nature. I suggest you look closely at your life and determine who profits based on what you do and what happens to you. Ask yourself, day to day and hour to hour, if what you experience is equitable; if you have enough of what you need; and look at the arrangements where those limits are contained. If you pay attention, you will discover yourself in relationships that contain a kind of infinite potential. You will get a look at how those relationships work at their best, and most significantly, you will see the ways in which you can turn the old-style experiences into something where actual benefits to everyone involved are available not only to the direct participants, but to everyone. Indeed, you would be stunned if you could see the potential — and I trust that you will.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
Put your highly evolved sense of justice to work, for yourself. Be demonstrative about your firm understanding that mutual respect is the only way that the world is going to function, or work its way out of its current hole. The truth has a way of perpetuating itself. We like to think this is true of lies, but whether a person places their faith in one or the other says just about everything you need to know about who they are. There are the people who cannot tell the difference, and worse yet, those who don’t care. Yet integrity is obvious, if you are looking, listening and paying attention to the information sent by your third eye. If certain people who show up seem to have a broken mind be very discerning about how you handle them. Meanwhile, everyone knows the rules are changing, and that the structure of society is being recreated as we speak. For you this translates to relationships. Along with that new model is your coexistence with two factors — your work and your health. The people admitted to your life must be committed to both, as they apply to you and to themselves. We have come through a time when the decay of integrity and accountability have rarely ever been more severe. You at least are accountable to yourself. Others who share this value are gradually arriving in your life — notice them.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
You have the ability to move mountains, and the way you do this is by being committed to labor and unceasing toil. Your charts say that your real gift is organizing; that is, getting others to work in coordination, to get a large job done. Your only reluctance to put this talent to full use is that it might give you the feeling that you’re not working enough. I know you well enough to know that even if you had fifty people coordinated on a project, you would save a slice of the most challenging work for yourself. So you can scratch that off of your list of things to worry about. I consider you one of the social engineers of our planet. You know, and I mean you really do know, that the only way we are going to move through our very serious, dangerous and rich with potential phase of history is to fully embrace the need to cooperate. You are also something of a natural-born psychologist (rivaling only Scorpio in this regard) and you know that many people have their reasons why they think it’s better to take an ‘every man for himself’ approach to existence. Please help lead humanity out of this darkness. Remind the people around you that all we have is each other. Remind yourself often that you are part of something much larger than your own life.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
Venus has finally worked its way out of the retrograde that had, until lately, dominated the year’s astrology, and you have learned one thing: not to live your life based on what you think that others think. This includes your lover or lovers, or any relationship interests; it involves your parents and it involves the way you present yourself to the world at large. Most people spend their lives either trying to impress others by being who they think others want them to be, or by arrogantly being whoever they feel like being without regard for anyone’s feelings. There is a vast middle ground, which involves factors like empathy, rapport, respect and authentic individuality. I would guess that by now, you’ve figured out that unless we make space for all of us to be who we are, there is not much space for anything else. One of the things you appear to have done is to create space for yourself in the context of your relationships. I strongly suggest you keep doing this, that is, pushing open a wider and wider space for yourself to exist within the lives of the people around you. This should not be a problem, but be aware that with your creative powers maturing, the only people who are going to seem spacious are those who are committed to their growth and their own creative process.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
You must be emotionally grounded to be free; to be emotionally grounded you need to either feel like you belong somewhere, or be consciously, firmly devoted to it not mattering whether you do or don’t. Ultimately, most environmental issues relate to some internal factor. The planets are conspiring to help you work out what that factor is, and to align you with a kind of therapy process to get you to where you want to be. You seem to be edging ever-closer to actually anchoring yourself in a measure of creative freedom — closer, but (so far) never quite getting there. My point is that you most certainly will, and you will sooner than you think. But the territory you are covering now is essential to making sure you are actually stable enough to be freer than you are today. Part of that freedom involves your emotional world. While nobody would doubt that you are an emotional person, the theme of the planets is how you structure your emotions, and the extent to which you try to hold a consistent pattern. To the extent that any lingering old patterns remain, you are now being keyed into the existence of another kind of strength; one that does not require control so much as it requires awareness. This includes awareness of where you will not let your feelings go, and an invitation to enter precisely that space.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
Stop trying to prove that you exist in theory and get down to practical reality. One attribute of that is about either deciding where you want to be on the planet, or getting yourself to where you know you need to be. There is no distance on the planet that is too great to cross or to cover. No matter where you are, you can get yourself somewhere else, though at this time, that is not about making a random choice; there is an element of precision to the conjunction of Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune that is so closely related to your sign. If you are finding yourself running ragged, slow down and reassess your priorities. Notice the decision points in your life, and take each one as consciously as a chess move. I suggest that you raise the level of the game above whether you win or lose, and notice whether you are paying attention or not. The current astrology could be so psychically overwhelming that you somehow fail to notice just how amazing it is. There is one other point of potential distraction: you may be looking to others for confirmation of who you are. Most of the people around you think slowly or in reverse compared to yourself, so you don’t want to do too much comparing, or seeking advice. The theme of your life now could be summed up in two phrases, “Know what you know,” and “Action is the fruit of knowledge.”

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
Turn up the passion. I’m not kidding. Turn it up twice as high as you think ‘high’ is supposed to be; if you play guitar get an amplifier that goes up to 11; make sure people notice you and for Goddess’s sake, make sure that if you love someone you tell them about it. Early in the month you get some positively luscious opportunities to make moves, as long as they are driven by something very pure and lusty. To the extent you’ve been typecast as a calculating, stoic person, the time has arrived to break the mold. I am suggesting this at a time when you are under less pressure rather than more; at the moment you are being delivered a saucy dose of inspiration, gusto and thirst for life, rather than the usual kinds of complications or confrontations with authority that make life on Earth so special. The kinds of steps you want to take will thrive in an atmosphere of free choice rather than mandatory action. This makes a truly interesting and, after about a day, fun psychological exercise. Each time you reach a juncture of choice, decide whether you’re doing it because someone says you should be doing it, or because you want to. Sort out desire and necessity — at times this can be subtle, and at times it can be glaringly obvious. Most of all, really, truly understand what is important to you; then write it on the wall.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
I would not be surprised if you felt your life has been running out of control, or at least if your mind has been. This year has melted from one kind of intensity to another to another, all designed to leave you where you are today: out on the edge, in totally unfamiliar personal territory, and moreover in a place without a map. I think you need this absence of familiarity as much as you need food. However, the map known as astrology reveals several things: one is that you are breaking through the shell of your personality, only to discover that not far beneath the surface is this too-often elusive thing known as soul. This awareness necessarily requires a kind of ego death, where the familiar version of yourself and all its references to the past start to melt like ice in the light of the Sun. The second thing is that while you will be occupying this edge for a while, you are retreating a bit now, and this ever-so-slight pulling back is on time. Last, it is not air or an abyss beyond the edge of what you know, but an ocean; a world of feeling and experience and indeed a whole new cosmos beneath the waves. It may be a while before you sail out on the high seas on your own; for now, some of that energy is coming to you in waves, to acclimate you to this new cosmos you will soon see is your life.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
We’ve all had these experiences, you’ve probably had a hundred of them, where the normal rules of life suspend themselves and suddenly something highly unusual seems possible. Or indeed something impossible seems perfectly plausible. It’s amazing when it happens and it can be frustrating when you reach for the metaphysical key and cannot find the key or the lock. Yet at the moment, the planets are aligned in a way that is highly auspicious for Pisces, if you can handle the energy, and if you have the nerve to dare. If you are the kind of Fish who gets stuck on the negative emotional bandwidths, this would include the nerve to dare holding a positive wavelength and remembering that of all the signs, yours is the one that knows the only actual purpose humans have is to love. I don’t mean to put on the groovy; I mean to state the most basic metaphysical law that there is, and the one that opens up all the other dimensions and potential realities. On the practical level, know what you want and make sure you get it. Don’t be afraid that one desire will come at the expense of another; this is time-bound, linear thinking. Be clear what you want to happen in your life and leave the door open. When the people and things you want to attract come to you, welcome them, and let your fears fall away like a tight old shoe.

About the Author

Eric Francis is the creator of Planet Waves and author of Book of Blue. He has worked as a professional astrologer and internationally published horoscope columnist since the mid-1990s, specializing in minor planets. He has presented sexuality workshops and written for such publications as the Journal of Bisexuality, Sexuality.org and Loving More magazine. He writes his astrology columns in his fine art photography studio in Kingston, New York.

Aries (March 20-April 19)
Generally we take having a competitive spirit for granted. Or rather, you take it for granted. It does not make your relationships happier places. There are other options, such as cooperation, listening and sharing. The problem with those options is that like many things (alternative energy, sex, how much money your grandfather really has) they are kept as a carefully guarded secret. The way is open for you to direct your abundant energy into creating a model of consciousness where you support the world and it supports you; where you facilitate life for people who are working to weave the integrity of the world. There is a concept slowly working its way into mainstream language — dharma. This is the opposite of karma, or the results of our actions. Dharma is acting as if to hold the world together. The little ‘as if’ part is included for skeptics who might not believe that honesty or granting the people you love freedom actually matter.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
You have many secret desires; I would propose that you have a few that are secret even from yourself. Why you might not speak up about them could involve a matter of pride. So I will phrase this as a question: would you want to be known for who and what you desire the most? If not, what do you want to be known for, and how do you reconcile the difference? This means more than you may think: to your sanity, to your integrity and to the unity of your consciousness. It’s easier to live as one person rather than as an entity cut into parts, worrying about who thinks what about you. The first step is to become completely familiar with who you are, and I mean becoming intimate and accepting of the new developments that are shaping your consciousness. Then I suggest you notice something unusual about our particular moment in history: you actually can be that without judgment — but only if you step out.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
Faith is the thing that you want. I would say it’s the pearl of great price, but actually it is free. I would say that for as far back as it’s practical to remember, you’ve been working on this one, or struggling with it, or responding to its attempts to get your attention. Faith means faith in people and it means faith in love. At the center of this discussion is that pesky thing known as ethics. You have more power than you know, but you will only set your influence into motion by striving for impeccability. If you catch yourself applying situation ethics, that is, something is ‘right’ under one circumstance but ‘wrong’ under a similar circumstance, I suggest you stop and question yourself. Right now you have visibility and a strong sense of presence in the world. This is to say, you are attractive, and your example counts for more than usual. You will get back exactly what you put out.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
Most people on this planet would rather keep their sexual reality separate from their spiritual one. The old idea that sex is dirty and God is clean has stalked us clear through the first decade of the 21st century. You are currently standing in a place where your deepest spiritual values are intersecting with your sexual values. This involves healing a split that runs so deep in the human psyche the only thing that could possibly resolve it is a miracle. And that is what appears to be on order for you. Honor sex as the cosmic thing it is. Honor the creative force of the universe as expressing itself through living things as a sexual process. Do this in the spirit of making peace with existence; that is, with the fact that you exist and were created; and that you continue to create yourself.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
Relationships involve agreements, be they relationships that last one year or a lifetime. It’s interesting, and tragic, the extent to which so many agreements are not spoken and are based on misunderstandings. You are more clear than others in your expectations, and more generous than others in terms of what you are willing to give to any situation in order to have it work out for everyone. You now have a stunning opportunity to clear the air and the water for the future. There is something vital being arranged or negotiated now. The situation can work out equitably for everyone, if someone is willing to hold that vision; that someone would be you. In any situation involving a sexual relationship or multiple relationships, the psychic atmosphere is calling for two things: one is total transparency, and the other (related) is being clear and negotiable about what you want, and getting clear about what those around you want. That creates a platform for seeing common interests and for honest negotiation.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
Saturn in your sign is a heavy influence, but it’s teaching you to hold your ground and give your life some dependable shape. Part of that is learning how to work with time. Then it’s meaningful to remember that there are things that transcend time and our ideas about the right order in which things are supposed to happen. You are living your life right in that zone where relationship experiences are healing experiences, which is a grand thing because most of the healing we need involves the kinds of trust issues that are open to the most positive influences in your life. You are going to be the one who takes the lead guiding your relationships in this direction, but you can trust one thing — that even if your words seem to have fallen on deaf ears in the past, the people you care about and who care about you will likely be more open-hearted and clear of mind than you’ve ever known them to be.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
An important relationship has withstood an important test: an adjustment of some kind, some strange complication or a series of reconciliations with the past. This has all pointed to one thing: the challenge of coming up with a new vision. Now is the time for this vision to demonstrate itself in practical terms, that is, in real ways that lead to the happiness of everyone involved. While this is happening, you are in an important exercise of your own, which is about making sure you live your life fully despite what anyone may think. By living I mean expressing your creative volition in a way that you never have before. Here is the test. If you are free, you are free to take some unusual chance on yourself. Ideally this would challenge the people around you to adapt to your new vision of yourself, which in turn will bring your relationships onto a level where they actually work for you.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
You need to live through the end of the matter before you can get to the beginning of the next one; and you are very close. You’re not close if you think in short spans of time, such as last week or even last year. But you’re very close if you think in long spans of time, for example, the past 10 years. Basically, consider your emotional history as far back as you can remember, then imagine that what you are resolving, setting yourself free from and working to recreate about yourself goes back that far. I would add one last point. The transition from old to new does not usually come with a ribbon cutting. In the midst of working out the details on one phase of your life, the new one can draw you in like the time vortex that it is. Things that were delayed in being resolved, or resisting, or which seemed impossible, can suddenly be irrelevant.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
Words are important. They are a crucial aspect of commitment. At the moment, that commitment involves manifesting something that does not currently exist. Speak only the words that you mean, and make sure you mean precisely what you want to say. Images are meaningful, perhaps more meaningful, but they can have an ambiguous property and thus lack precision; but they make up for it in impact. In your personal healing process, or creative process or both, I suggest you work with both, using one to support the other. One is probably going to turn out to be more influential than the other — but not without the integration of the two. There will be a product of this sacred union: an idea. There is something visionary about your sign, and at the moment both of your guiding planets — Chiron and Jupiter — are perfectly integrated with Aquarius, the sign of ideas. Not just any ideas: when these two signs get together, ideas are born that change the course of history.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
You are under enormous pressure to change; to let go not only of old personality patterns and behaviors, but also to bring all your files up to date. Pluto in your sign is about renewal, it’s about passion, and it’s about letting go of the dull expectations that others have projected onto you most of your life. We often get trapped in the visions that others have for us, and the reason those visions exist is that many people before you were also trapped. At the moment there is nothing that can withstand the forces of growth that have taken over your nature. The truth is this. You are neither as conservative nor as narrow as others have made you out to be, or that you have made yourself out to be as a means of giving yourself a little security in the world. At the moment your safety is not going to come from wearing blinders, acting politically or being cautious. You will feel the safest when you let yourself be a new person every day and judge nothing on the criteria you have used in the past. Not, that is, if you want to truly live in the present.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
You are taking on the attributes of many other signs of the zodiac right now. There is no simple interpretation of this, except to say that you have many currents of energy to draw upon. And because the truly unusual astrology of this month takes place in your sign, that means you have many resources that are not normally available. The question is: how are you going to use them? I suggest you create something that is built to last; designed to grow; and where the conclusion is open-ended. The best and most important movements of the planets are what I call threshold transits. They happen to us, but they do not end, per se; rather, when they are ‘over’, we are like a different person. Right now you are standing in that threshold. You are involved in one of the deepest processes that a human can experience, which is focusing on the notion of ‘who you are’ to what you value and are ready to live for. You are indeed ready. You feel the winds of change and see the lights on the horizons of your mind. Let them carry you and guide you to where you have long wanted and needed to be, and please let no compromise of truth mar the beauty of the moment.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
You are under the influence of forces that you cannot see and would not necessarily understand if you could. Then again, you do have a mind that spins in odd enough directions to comprehend the incomprehensible. Yet consider that understanding only gets a person so far, only counts for so much, and can get in the way. This is partly because the facts and factors that lead to that understanding are constantly changing, and you need to reassess the available data from moment to moment. That is a fancy way of saying what you can be certain of is that you are being held safely in the gentle hands of the cosmos. Listen for your spiritual guidance: the still, small voice within. It may speak first; it may speak second; it may speak in your dreams. You will recognize its advice by its simplicity, its clarity and how well it fits your circumstances. Though much of what you are currently experiencing is going on behind the scenes of your life, and will not fully manifest until 2010-2011, what you do and create now is a vivid harbinger of the future, and of your future self.

About the Author

Eric Francis is the creator of Planet Waves and author of Book of Blue. He has worked as a professional astrologer and internationally published horoscope columnist since the mid-1990s, specializing in minor planets. He has presented sexuality workshops and written for such publications as the Journal of Bisexuality, Sexuality.org and Loving More magazine. He writes his astrology columns in his fine art photography studio in Kingston, New York.

Photo of Eric Francis taken in spring 2008 in Chicago by Danielle Voirin.

Aries (March 20-April 19)
Beneath your familiar personality is another layer of psychic reality, one that you make contact with from time to time. Now happens to be one of them. Gradually you are melting your way through the false floors and into feeling the essence of your existence. Here is the main difference between that and what you think of as yourself: on the essential level, everything about who you are is a flexible possibility rather than a fixed idea. You can melt into the world of potential rather than needing to push yourself there. And with this feeling comes a new sense of your erotic potential: in particular, the feeling that within your psyche you contain all possibilities of male, female, masculine, feminine and every combination thereof. Once you touch that truth, the full expression of who you are is only a gesture away.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
In order to make contact with the truth of who you are, you’re being asked to give something up. It may be an idea about partnership, a fantasy or something about how you idealize your existence. It may be some piece of yourself to which you’ve been attached for a long time, but not knowing why. The moment of truth may feel like being put through an emotional wringer, and you may indeed be experiencing something akin to isolation and potentially loss. If so, I suggest you do nothing to drown, stuff or hide from your conflict, but rather stay fully conscious and go with it. If there’s a ‘lesson’ here it’s not the kind that takes years to learn. What I see is a moment of fully embracing a hidden, even shadowy side of your sexual nature or desire nature long enough to set yourself free into something much lighter and more nourishing.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
Among the many sets of pairs that you can use to divide yourself is your ‘public self’ versus your ‘private self’. This can and does lead people to put far more emphasis on their image than on the substance of who they are. It’s true that many people you meet on the street emphasize image precisely because they feel a lack of substance. Maybe you’ve figured out how slippery this can be, the whole business of trying to maintain appearances for the sake of preserving something about your reputation that is actually the opposite of what is true. I would say that now is the time to be known for who you are inside. This would mean presenting a true picture of yourself to the people around you, contending consciously with the fear that you might be judged for doing so. If you wonder what has been dragging you down half your life, it is this fear of judgment, and there is only one way to dispense with that: confront it directly.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
Once you burrow through to the ethical question that is behind your doubts, you will feel a lot better. You seem to have given up on something that is dear to you, such as a goal or a vision for your life. You seem to be under the heavy influence of another person in this process. I would propose that their influence, if you perceive it as discouraging or negative, can and must have a strengthening influence on what your intentions are. This would be a good time to remind you that having a goal feels like one thing and entering the reality where you begin to accomplish what you set out to do feels like something else. In a sense, one is an idealization and one is a world you must live in. You can, and it can be rich territory. Yet in that world there are certain places you can only go alone.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
The hottest sex is spiritual in nature, so far as I can tell: which is to say, it somehow goes beyond individual love and enters a space that is universal. If you get to this space, if you feel like you have suddenly left the realm of the ‘interpersonal’ and the ‘familiar’ and are in a new cosmos, open up and embrace this dimension of reality. It is indeed reality, though unfamiliar to many. One potentially frightening aspect of this is that in the transpersonal realm, individual ego identity seems to matter less, or not at all. In a sense, anyone could be anything. Second is the connection between erotic experience, death and the inherent transience of relationships. You can feel almost anything you want on Earth, but due to the nature of this plane of reality it is temporary. Let this be your cause for celebration.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
You are about to touch the edge of territory that you can occupy if you want. Other factors have been pointing you here, particularly a person who seems to have a bigger idea of what is possible in life than you may be comfortable plunging into. Or you may be brewing this idea yourself, visioning an experience that feels like it might be deeply pleasurable. I sense you are seeking for the relational aspect. That is, sexual experience is one thing, but most people would say it’s more fulfilling when it’s mingled with meaningful human contact. Your cosmic assignment seems to be making all human contact meaningful. Be aware of when others try to detract from the meaning of some kinds of experiences in order to build up the meaning of others. This is deception, but it’s not always obviously so.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
If it’s true that you seek self-knowledge through others, then how can you help others seek self-knowledge through you? Would you be willing to do that consciously, and moreover, would you feel up to the task? The more meaningful question, though, seems to be how we can step out of this constant need to mirror and be mirrored in a way that blurs the boundaries between who is who in a relationship. I know that this is one of the easiest ways to seem to escape the boundaries and limits of the individual ego. Yet often we escape one trap and walk into another. Imagine a world where we felt like we actually existed without needing one another for validation. Imagine a planet where we could be a whole person without needing to prove that point by having someone else. That would leave us free to relate as individuals. I don’t think we get all the way there in one jump, but we definitely can take significant steps — and you seem ready for a few of those right now.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
I got an email today from some commenting that for weeks I’ve been mentioning something about a story involving the supposed partner of Scorpios; but what if you don’t have a partner? In that case, the references pertain to your perspective on relationships. If there is not a specific person involved, what is involved is your relationship to relationship itself. Not only can this now change, it seems to dearly need to, and like that progress is probable. If you focus first on healing — whatever that concept means to you — as your first agenda item, you are the most likely to find yourself exploring a world of feeling, sensation and imagination. I think it will work in this order, better than the other way. Healing is an intention you would apply to yourself first, most likely starting with an emotional or relational pattern that you’ve been struggling to get free from. Give it a name, so that you can talk about it; and proceed for a while with this out in the open, rather than veiled.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
I would propose that for most people, sexual reality is predominantly emotional or physical, rather than creative. I don’t mean using costumes or body paint, but hey that sounds like fun. I do mean self-creative, that is, a conscious act of exploring your identity and sense of self and stretching into new places that you’ve never gone before. We think of sex as being procreative, rather than as self-generative. It is both. It would seem that in recent months you’ve gone quite a few old places, and they have been interesting, but now it’s clearly time for something different, and that means daring. Look specifically at what you would fear the most, and consider this a valid possibility. Don’t let your head get in the way: your old agenda, your prior expectations, or the judgments that were laid on you when you were younger. You are more than entitled to experiment with who you are: doing so is specifically who you are. And if you can get to this space of unfettered daring, without clinging to yourself or anyone, other people will very like be interested, and come to you.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
If you express yourself, you will find some clarity. You may feel like you have to hold your silence until you actually know what you need to say, before you say it. I would propose that if you try to get out what you think is lurking in your feelings, you will get part of the way there, and if you revise this a few times you will actually figure it out. Okay, now for the contact point. Consider the sexuality of the parent about whom you know the least; the one who seemed to be absent, vague or to lack the ability to focus on you. I’m aware that the eroticism of their parents is the very last thing they want to think about; many people think it’s disgusting. However, I would propose that how you feel about your parents’ sex relates to how you feel about the fact that you exist. From here, how you feel and what you need to say to yourself will be much easier to access.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
Over the next few weeks, it’s going to become easier to be honest with yourself. The reasons you have to conceal anything from your own awareness have been melting away for a long time. You probably figured out that to be honest with others, it’s necessary to be honest with yourself first; this is one of the few places that emotional reality actually follows logic. If you take this path, it follows further that the person who you are inside is the only person you can actually be in relationship to another. Whether you are losing or gaining ground in your relationships directly involves your ability to be entirely authentic within their sphere. You do not have an alternate self who relates to others; you relate to them as a whole being. There remains the question of what to do with the past. Here is a suggestion: if it is nagging you, and you have to keep stuffing it down, then let it out and be real about it.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
You are being presented with a series of opportunities that will help you directly mediate your freedom. In other words, you are the medium of your own liberation. Other people will be involved and it’s clear that recently, they have been involved. Yet something is different; there is something self-directed that is unfolding. You are no less interested in relationships than you’ve ever been, but Mars in your sign is giving you a relatively rare opportunity to see that you are both the ‘thing’ that desires, and the ‘thing desired’. This may seem pushy. I suggest that the quality of feeling, to the contrary, is about receptivity rather than expression. Notice what your emotions and your senses are telling you. Notice who notices you — don’t worry about why. This experience of feeling and observation opens up a horizon to anywhere.

About the Author

Eric Francis is the creator of Planet Waves and author of Book of Blue. He has worked as a professional astrologer and internationally published horoscope columnist since the mid-1990s, specializing in minor planets. He has presented sexuality workshops and written for such publications as the Journal of Bisexuality, Sexuality.org and Loving More magazine. He writes his astrology columns in his fine art photography studio in Kingston, New York.

Photo of Eric Francis taken in spring 2008 in Chicago by Danielle Voirin.

Aries (March 20-April 19)
Looked at one way, all sex is about oneself, often to the point of obsession. We typically make a big show of it being about the other. Yet deep down we know that the attention, affection and energy of the other is usually craved or worked for so that we may reaffirm our sense of who we are. Realize that people do indeed have karma with one another, and this plays out in relationships; but that’s a big part of the problem. The unconscious drive for affirmation, plus the unconscious tendency to hook up with people we have karma with, calls for a phase of sorting out. This will happen sooner rather than later with Venus retrograde in your sign between March 6 and April 17.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
You are one who harbors many secret feelings about yourself. In a sense you keep your own identity hidden from your awareness, as if it represented some kind of taboo to be conscious of who you are. This is an old story in human history, and the planets are aligned such that you can finally break this taboo on self-knowledge. Unusual movements of your guiding planet, Venus, suggest that much of what you discover will be in the form of what you need sexually. Usually we only think about this at night, with the lights off, and we don’t dare breathe a word to anyone. Being honest with yourself is a good start. Then, believe it or not, you just might crave being authentically open with many other people.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
Old friends and lovers might be showing up faster than you can count them. The thing to remember is this does not necessarily mean the long-anticipated perfect love affair has finally come back to greet you. Of course, it always could, but the kind of astrology we are under is more like being in an echo chamber of emotion. You might have some hot encounters, revisiting old situations. You might run into friends who remind you who you were at an earlier time in your life — and it’s a reminder you need. You’re not as old as you think and this will help you figure out how young you are.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
You don’t need to pretend you don’t know who you are. You know perfectly well. You also don’t need to pretend you have no idea who someone else is; they have revealed themselves and continue to do so. Fantasy is alluring right now, but reality is hotter. I agree, the line between them is growing thin, but if you anchor yourself on making contact with actual people in bodies — rather than, for example, long-distance and/or in some digital form, you will have more satisfying experiences. Remember that lately and for the foreseeable future, you want your sex deep, spiritually meaningful and profoundly naked. Just make sure there is water in the pool before you dive off the deep end.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
Propriety, pride, reticence — these are virtues sometimes, but now they will only block you from sharing intimately, from having the fun you want and accessing the passion you want. You may well be wondering, with all that is being offered to you right now, why you would want to keep a stiff upper lip? Keep asking that, but while you’re doing philosophy research, consider your actual options. You have many, and you have the option to relax and experiment. I know we live in a time when everything comes with a security code and requires authentication, but the best things in life usually involve taking a chance.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
You seem to be so busy with commitments that you don’t have time to explore. Therefore, when someone arrives and gives you an opportunity to do just that, I suggest you make time and space. More to the point, make being available a priority. I mean really available, unplugged and potentially undressed; but mainly psychologically and spiritually available. Far to the contrary of what most “on the go” types say, this is an option, and usually we opt out by being too busy because we don’t want to be vulnerable. Remember, being open to pleasure means being open to pain. Being open to love means being open to fear.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
One of the greatest turn-ons for humans in bodies and egos (that would be all of us) is a powerful sense of identification with the other; that is, with a counterpart of some kind. The planets are arranged in such a position as to make this inevitable; you are likely to see a little of yourself in everyone, including how you perceived yourself when you were younger. You may feel like you’re standing in a time machine. The thing to bear in mind is that the time is in fact right now, not yesterday. Andy Warhol once said that all sex was about nostalgia. I’ve noticed many times that this is true, but it doesn’t have to be.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
Who you want and why you want them sometimes verges on chaos. If I am not mistaken, your fetish for bad boys or girls, as the case may be, is acting up. What about yourself are you looking for in someone who has issues following the rules, or who is motivated by something besides love? Think of everything you do as an expression of how you feel about yourself. You don’t want to put other people in the position of getting their kicks for you, nor of taking your risks for you — or of acting out any lingering negative feelings you have about yourself. Attraction is an invitation; you don’t have to answer. Send an invite or two of your own.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
For years, there has been a movement to “reunite” sex and spirituality. I think this would come in the form of love. We might wonder how they ever got separated in the first place, and that is a long story. It’s a story of greed, of feeling separated from the divine source we say we love, and most of all it’s based on a model of relating that says we can only love one person. If we only love one person, how do we really feel about everyone else? If sex is spiritual, and God or Goddess is real, then everyone is equal; and if we pretend that one person is special at the expense of another person, we’re doing something really weird, in my opinion.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
You have a lot to share and you know it. If there is something stopping you from doing so, I suggest you check it out. Remember that we live in schizophrenic times where sex is concerned: surrounded by hyper-eroticism on one side of the equation, and told to wear promise rings on the other. I suggest you get a handle on what is guiding you to make the choices you are making; is it about doing what you think others think is right — or is it being yourself? You have a lot of pressure on you to conform to expectations, and trust me when I say that religion damaged you more than you have figured out. It’s time to start thinking for yourself.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
Recent weeks and months have been a profound time of self-discovery, and I’m sure you’ve been doing more sexual experimentation than you usually do; unless you are feeling injured and keeping to yourself. What you are learning about now is the relationship between being hurt and being powerful. These two concepts need to be in a dialog, informing one another of their respective truths. Most people refuse to be conscious of both their pain and their power. If you can be aware of both, you will heal a long struggle and begin to find your inner voice with greater strength and clarity.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
By now you’ve noticed that your visibility, your energy level and your sense of presence in the world are running high and in vivid colors. This must be a refreshing change from feeling invisible. Beware, because this is the point where most people turn around and run for cover. You have nothing to be afraid of, and people who meet you have no reason to doubt you. Work for a measure of consistency; that is, be yourself all the time, though you don’t have to take on your own doubts as a measure of your identity. If you refuse to let them take over, you will discover that you resonate with people, you will draw them closer to you and you will have something to share.

About the Author

Eric Francis is the creator of Planet Waves and author of Book of Blue. He has worked as a professional astrologer and internationally published horoscope columnist since the mid-1990s, specializing in minor planets. He has presented sexuality workshops and written for such publications as the Journal of Bisexuality, Sexuality.org and Loving More magazine. He writes his astrology columns in his fine art photography studio in Kingston, New York.

Photo of Eric Francis taken in spring 2008 in Chicago by Danielle Voirin.

Aries (March 20-April 19)
The sad truth is that most people will act not based on what they want or what they think is right, but on the supposition of what they think their friends might think. You can afford to stay centered on your own values, or your own message to yourself, and make some actual decisions — in particular about who you love, and what you want to do about that love. I suggest that for the foreseeable future, you experiment with the notion that love is not altruistic or about someone else, but is inherently narcissistic. In other words, your story is about you. If someone else fits the theme or pattern of that story, so much the better — but these are encounters rare enough to find. Until then, the only way to send a clear signal is to be yourself, which means knowing your own desires and stating them honestly.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
Your fantasy life may be hotter than your physical experiences now, but I wonder what is standing between the two. What is the barrier? Is it inhibition, or is it the feeling that reality will never match the intensity of your imagination? Or is it a sense of control that you get in your mental world that could never quite happen in your 3D life? I would propose that now would be a fine time to take one thing that’s existed in fantasy and take steps to grounding it in real life. You will learn something about yourself when you do: for instance, you will see how these partitions mediate between the ’separate’ aspects of who you are. In actually dealing with your inhibitions, you will observe that they’re there in the first place. Then maybe you will see the value of moving through several more of them.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
Mercury is about to take a trip through Aquarius, and this should turn up the kink factor for you. You may currently feel bogged down in the necessities of commitment. Yet those contracts only affect what you’re supposed to do and feel, not what you actually want. What you want is part of a wide vision that includes having a full-spectrum existence. Be honest with yourself about what you’re not getting; and claim back any ideas that you’re projecting onto others about why you can’t get those needs met. If you ask me, your charts are saying that you need to have the spiritual aspect of sex be on the same par as the physical one. Trading one for the other is not a deal worth making, and nobody who understood the false nature of the compromise would ever do it.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
An eclipse of the Moon in Leo is here to tell you there’s something vitally important that you’ve never admitted before. Are you ready to be absolutely honest about one of the most valuable qualities you possess? In terms of sexual relationships, the implication is that you are finding your way to your core truth about yourself, and that truth involves a simple scenario about how every relationship you have is an extension of your relationship to yourself. There’s a shade of embarrassment that can arrive with this discovery, since relationships are allegedly about everyone else and not you. We all know this is a charade; that we strive to get our needs met whether we’re honest about it or not. Yes, you are your lover and many people are aware of this fact. They need the example you’re setting.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
One of the strangest properties of the cosmic physical plane is how we take on one another’s injuries. We also tend to project our own sense of injury onto others. New people walk into our lives and it’s as if they were always there, playing out the drama that’s always been played out. Events of the next few weeks will help you see these metaphysical dramas for what they are: basically, a lot of nothing. I am not sure how the rather unusual eclipse in your birth sign is going to manifest for you, but it looks like a great time to allow your sexual pain to be yours, and that of other people to belong to them. In the same gesture, claim your pleasure, and some sense of entitlement to own what you want. You may not feel the right to have that pleasure, not yet, anyway — but you can certainly claim your right to desire.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
This strange concept we have of “possessing a self” seems to be meaningful mainly in the context of surrendering that self. We own this cumbersome set of definitions, attachments and needs and then when the time is right, we let them go, usually using an experience with a partner as the factor that induces us to melt the ego’s boundaries. You may feel a profound need to do this, a craving so deep that it doesn’t resemble anything you’ve ever felt before. This drive is being fuelled by the a deep healing process, though you may not see the way that indulging in deep sexual surrender could have anything to do with helping set your life in order. In fact, you may think it’s the very last thing you need. The truth is you will not know either way for sure until you are deep into the experience.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
You’re entitled to one moment of profound insecurity right now. But that is it. You are in the process of conquering the world, but you can’t do that if you’re dragging around a lot of tarnished old pseudo-self-esteem. If you can really go there, that is, if you lay down your considerable worldly confidence and allow yourself a true moment of existential panic, you will blossom emotionally. And you may recover all that fear as a burst of erotic energy that lights up every other aspect of who you are. The thing is that few people would feel that consciously embracing fear could lead to anything productive or positive. They are clueless.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
It is often said that the sexiest organ is the mind. But who really believes this? Most people would choose the big bulge in the pants or the cameltoe before they went for the superlative IQ. While I’m not sure about the view in the direction of your blue jeans, I can tell you that your mind is in high gear and is definitely the thing to watch. The thing to watch out for is running rings around people. Be smart, but be physical, emotional and sensory. In fact, I would stick to the sensory level and allow the brainiac stuff to stay far in the background. Your intuition is far more dependable, and you will be more than noticeable for your superlative wits. What the people around you need to know is that you’re grounded in reality, and that you really care.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
You may not feel comfortable with the power you’ve recently been bestowed — and you may not be aware of it quite yet. Try and tell me if it’s true. Your words have penetrating power now. People are listening to you, and you can get their attention easily. But it’s not really your words; the effect is hormonal. It’s going on way below the level of the conscious mind; your process now is to make it conscious, and bring the unspoken world to the level of full awareness. You’ve recently acquired a new kind of sexual and emotional power, and you need to use it responsibly; and that means with your full attention. Notice how people are responding to you. Don’t let false modesty get in the way of that simple observation.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
You feel you’re special, but this can be extremely distracting. Neither does it work if you pretend you’re ordinary. And it does not help if you declare that everyone is special. They may be, but most people are adepts at one thing at least — hiding how special they are. What I suggest you do if you are looking for deeper points of connection is to be aware of ways that you are unique; consider the ways you’ve been hurt in the past; and stay in contact with what you uniquely need right now. I suggest you treat every encounter with a new person you meet as the drawing back of a curtain. When you meet someone, imagine you’re looking at a veil. It’s only a matter of time before that veil gets drawn back; and in that moment you will see who you’re talking to and be able to reveal who you are.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
This is one of the most visionary times of your life — or perhaps one when you’ve never felt more trapped inside of a vision that you cannot manifest. I can say this: you’re a lot further along in your process than you imagine. If you’re developing an idea for how you want your life to be (and I do mean your most passionate erotic life), then keep your focus inward. You have yet to discover the tipping point where what you align with in your internal world expresses itself as a tangible development in your outer life. This really is a matter of connecting deeply with the truth of who you are, which is often the first thing that we deny or evade. Let yourself be drawn to the strange, the unruly and mostly to the unknown. Gradually enter the space of the unspeakable. Make eye contact with others as you do this. Look for the people whose eyes seem to be questioning you back.

About the Author
Eric Francis is the creator of Planet Waves and author of Book of Blue. He has worked as a professional astrologer and internationally published horoscope columnist since the mid-1990s, specializing in minor planets. He has presented sexuality workshops and written for such publications as the Journal of Bisexuality, Sexuality.org and Loving More magazine. He writes his astrology columns in his fine art photography studio in Kingston, New York.

Photo of Eric Francis taken in spring 2008 in Chicago by Danielle Voirin.