I hope you’ve taken dozens of workshops and gone to yoga class three times a week for at least five years and been devoted to your live juicing, your mantra, your karma and extra vitamin D, because all of a sudden it’s going to come in handy all at once.

March is the month of the Northern Hemisphere spring equinox, when the Sun enters Aries. Spring 2010 is the season that we make our first very close pass to this thing being called 2012. I’ll get to that in a moment: first let’s consider the immediate news.

The Sun is now in Pisces, the last sign. This may be a reflective time, as Pisces is one of the signs of completion, but it holds a strong memory of the past. Like with seawater, you can find every element in Pisces: traces of every planet and sign. This is overwhelming to some people: a kind of emotional saturation can accompany Pisces, bringing with it the potential for maddening instability and equally mad passion. There is creative freedom in Pisces, though it’s essential to work with some kind of container: a narrative, an agreement, a time boundary — and a focus on pleasure, while you also may be busy focusing on solving problems.

On March 10, Mars stations direct. This is the last bit of the winter 2010 astrology working itself out. Do you remember the stress factor back in December and January? It may seem like a distant memory now, but your body remembers; and the last of that energy is bottled up in Mars, which has been retrograde since the winter solstice. This has been a long, long sorting out of what we want, and for some, the discovery of their desire.

For some this has involved determining what they don’t want; for others, a struggle to come to grips with the truth of their needs. I suggest you translate this into the most positive terms that you can: just admit what you want and set that as a goal. On this plane of reality, there is little more powerful than human desire; but we tend to complicate it with guilt. Now, if you’ve been involved on any spiritual path at all, you know the negative power of guilt and the supreme importance of getting this emotion out of the way, which paves the way for everything better.

Look for this inner conversation to come to a peak around the 10th.

This gives way to the mighty spring equinox, when the Sun moves over the Aries Point and aligns with the planets already gathering for the 2012 celebration. Yet this is nothing compared to what happens in mid-June; and while that may seem far off, astrology is a seasonal tool: and the outset of the spring is the time to consider the whole season. And, to put it in mild terms, the energy explodes this spring: so much that has been pent up for so long comes out, and comes out all at once. This is about the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Aries.

We will learn something about our boundaries and, in truth, something about how hung up we’ve been. Nobody wants to be tangled in their own desires or scared of their own potential, though there are so many influences in that direction we can’t even keep track of them. This spring, the planets align day after day to bring us out of this dark dream, and into some of the promise of self-awareness, community and bold humanity that we in truth carry and possess within ourselves.

Yours & truly,

Eric Francis is now offering online astrology readings as part of Cosmic Confidential, the 2010 annual edition of Planet Waves. Check this link for more information.

Aries (March 20-April 19)
What you need to conclude the matter is to begin. That is often the way of endings, and that’s how it is now: to resolve or free yourself from the past, reach for the beginning and commence. You are likely to experience one or two significant moments of insecurity as you do, which I would classify as a false lack of confidence. One may involve money, that is, the idea that you don’t have enough of it or you can’t handle yourself. That is part of the risk. In business, there tend to be two kinds of ventures: someone’s father-in-law buys them the whole thing; or someone starts with a roll of postage stamps, a used computer and an idea. You are better suited for the second kind, the one that takes more nerve and leaves you with your independence. I’m not sure you’re the guardian angel type, but if you are, you can trust those critters — you seem to have two of them watching over you. I know you’re wondering whether you’re really fated to survive or succeed; I suggest you put a ll of your energy into trust and as little as possible into worrying. The people around you are committed, and everyone is ready for change, if you will stand up and lead the way. Progress is focused around the 10th, when Mars stations direct, and the 20th, when the Sun enters your sign.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
Stop hopping and walk on both feet. Just because you don’t know something doesn’t mean you won’t find the solution; to the contrary, you’re all the more likely to discover it because you know that you don’t know. As usual, the main thing standing between you and your own intelligence is fear. I don’t think you’ve quite discovered that rather than solving anything, fear scatters your intelligence and shatters your confidence. In case you ‘get that intellectually’ but need it explained to you on another level, fear is simply negative expectation. Such never creates a positive outcome. Something else always does. The calculus that you tend to run is: if something changes, the change will be for the worse. Therefore, it’s better not to change. This, consequently, blocks your eagerly-wished-for or sought-after progress. Frankly, this is a lame excuse not to make your life a better place. Those steps begin with committing to guiding your life with something besides insecurity. Wha t would that something be? Tangible, focused, unfettered desire. Set a goal and work for it. It does not matter what — as long as it’s something you want specifically. For example, don’t try to ‘get a job’, aim for exactly the work you want to do. Focus your intentions; know what you want, and act on it. This will take up all that space that fear was taking from you.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
The whole spiritual thing seems to confuse you; however, it’s clearly growing on you. Think of it as a level of thought without words: a dimension of concept free from structure. Think of it as an opening in your mind, and what comes through is living information. If you relax and allow and let go, this information will help you structure your other ideas and indeed your whole life around it. If you want to live for a principle, this is the one: the steady flow of energy that’s the essence of consciousness itself. Meanwhile, in the outer world, focus on cooperation. Move past out-dated acquaintances and stale hostilities quickly. Don’t hold onto them; let them go with the ease of exhaling. Make a habit of transitions. Know when the time for something has arrived, and when it is up. You are preparing for one particular transition that you may not know about yet. It involves the work you do. Themes involve 1) doing something with this brilliant quality you have of not fitting in and 2) focusing your misty notion of a goal into a clear sense of mission that is guided by the living information. This will require trust because you will be making moves that are not preceded by the usual astonishing amount of mental chatter and debate. You will simply know and trust. The time has come.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
Get ready to make the big moves: a series of them, which coincide with a sequence of events focused on your house of career and reputation. Prepare to depart from hangups about money and confidence and notions of your mission being too weird or unattainable. The first thing you are claiming as part of this process is your originality. In case you haven’t experienced it personally, consciously, originality doesn’t feel like you think it will. It has two main properties: a feeling of fun, and a sense of clarity. And I would add: function. There won’t be a professor looking over his glasses saying, ‘That is original’. The feeling comes come from you. It may be subtle. If you get the message ‘hot idea, let’s do this’, then do it. Give yourself permission to act, to initiate, to be different. One of the inner entities you must address is the part of you obsessed with self-control. Ask yourself what kind of authority you want to be in your own life. Since you’re in the position of being your own boss, what kind of boss do you want? You have a variety of choices. One of them is whether to orient on the past or the future. Another is to state your desires as an affirmation or as a negative; to deny or to desire. Finally, how do you plan to work with the limited time you have? Consciously, or not?

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
Through the winter you’ve been focused on some close-to-home, practical matters: emotional, mental, inner stuff based on simple necessity. Over the next few weeks, your orientation shifts rapidly, seemingly to bigger dreams and a bolder vision, but in truth a new alignment with yourself. This involves Mars stationing direct in Leo; to be precise, in the first degree of Leo; and over the next two months Mars will move clear through your sign. You’re likely to feel a lot of fiery motivation to achieve many things at once. I suggest you take this process one goal at a time, starting with modest ones; one day at a time; and keep sight of your earlier set of priorities involving your inner work. You have an opportunity to define an objective, then align your energy with it. Think of this like standing straight and aligning your spine; only it’s with energy. As you do this, bear in mind what’s drawing you toward the future. Something is; but you may think you don’t know. You do kn ow, and so do the people around you. Don’t keep this secret from yourself. This is not the time to indulge yourself in mystery; there is plenty of that in life, if it’s what you want. You will be stronger and have more access to your motivation if you move with conscious awareness of your inner truth.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
To what extent do you allow others to define who you are? And if you’re the one doing the allowing, isn’t this a kind of farce? You don’t need to negotiate for your identity. This includes with yourself. You don’t need to get it back from anyone who has it. You don’t need to ‘look for your identity in others’, though you can use them as a foil, as a barometer or as a reality check. Looking at your charts this month, a theme stands out boldly, which is the abject fear — I could use much stronger words, but I will not — of losing yourself in another. This might be the fear of being possessed by another, the fear of having someone else control you, or of making a commitment that you cannot get out of, and which compromises your freedom. Yet closer to home is the fear that you have to seek yourself in another; that somehow, you cannot find yourself without the benefit of a relationship. Imagine the challenge you might face with boundaries in any relationship, or in any committ ed situation, if you have any of these beliefs working silently in the background, in effect undermining your right to exist. In my reading, the planets say thus: notice what feels missing within yourself. Rather than ask where it went, ask how it could have gone anywhere at all.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
The revolution in your relationships begins right about now. While it would be difficult to overstate the case of what is brewing and shaking in your personal affairs, I have been doing my best to explain the process more in the style of water than of fire. Be aware of potential stress points within yourself, which is the tension between changing and staying the same. You may not be feeling it yet in such vivid terms. Yet beginning this month as planets, and I do mean Planets, begin to move into your opposite sign Aries, the energy is going to mount. You will be looking at options you never dreamed of. Well, sorry for underestimating you. You may have dreamed of them but are unlikely to have thought you might actually be handed the options. In the external world, this could represent literally any creative potential in any relationship; any invention; any incredible meeting. Internally, you have two main choices: resist at all costs, or choose. Resistance is likely to come i n the form of a high-energy struggle with making a decision; conscious choice will arrive with a feeling of your own influence in your own life-flow. I say this well versed in all the various [mostly true] prejudices about Libra and decision-making. I can assure you of this, no prejudice can substitute for your full and conscious presence in the moment.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
This is one of those months wherein you’re likely to have an overwhelming amount of stuff to do. However, among the many things that are not predestined is what you choose to do with your time and energy. Another is what basis you would use to decide. The important thing to remember is that you decide. To the extent that you’re feeling a calling to leadership, it’s the leadership of making decisions, particularly about your most meaningful goals. You do not merely seek activity; so far as I can tell, you seek a connection to existence on the level of purpose. Moreover, your ‘identity’ must be connected to that purpose, and that purpose is an expression of your identity. Get rid of any lingering abstract notions; you came here to do what you came here to do, and nothing less. The ‘activity’ angle of your chart comes under increasing focus as the spring unfolds. This is fiery energy, which resonates deeply with you because of your sign’s connection to the original ars onist of astrology, Mars. This moment in your life is offering you many unique pleasures, but you’ll miss the point if you feel like you’re being pushed beyond your limits. I’m reminded of some words written by a very young Allen Ginsberg: “Only return of thought to / its source will complete thought. / Only return of activity / to its source will complete /activity. Listen to that.”

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
It took the petroleum industry a while to get gasoline to burn slowly and evenly, without adding extremely toxic lead. Now you can go to a fuel pump and choose your octane level. Yet most people don’t know that gasoline itself was originally a waste product of the petroleum industry, burned by the ton until it went on to become the main event. Your life parallels all of these developments. You need to go for the slow burn in whatever you do: even, efficient and just hot enough to make full use of your fuel. You need to make careful use of waste products, and see their potential sooner rather than later. Take beginnings slowly, not quickly. Accelerate evenly. Slow down early. Follow at a safe distance. Practice all of this when you drive. Use the metaphor of manual shift; the automatic transmission has been horrid for driving skills. In sum, the planets are suggesting that you’re about to experience a surge of energy, a release from the past and a willingness to take new risk s and have new experiences. You can afford to take this slowly, moving from idea to gesture to experiment. Remember that you are handling live flame and potentially live ammunition. I am not saying be obsessed with control, but you will benefit from being obsessed with awareness. Monitor your changes carefully and make sure you’re heading in exactly the direction you want.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
The pressure comes on, then it comes off. Then it’s back. You deal with it just fine, though I suggest you take over this process internally, rather than constantly dealing with ‘circumstances’. True, there is plenty going on in your world. You’re being summoned to take up true authority, though that is merely a figment of the changes you are going through internally. This, during what turns out to be the most rapid acceleration of growth of your life. While the impulse to grow and grow and grow isn’t going to end anytime soon, you’re still at the beginning: in the pattern-setting mode, creating a new set of skills to help you adopt to constant internal movement. You’re also in the goal-setting phase, staging an insurrection against your parents, against society and against any expectations that have ever been laid on you. Yet you cannot simply get rid of these seemingly external influences; learning goal #1 goes something like this: You took on plenty of what was not your o wn, and then it became your own, and now you’re going the whole distance on claiming that fact and taking on the full power to set your own agenda. Remember that this is a growth agenda first, and worldly agenda second. I can’t say that often enough. If you proceed in that order, you will be unstoppable, and that (if you ask me) will be good for everyone.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
There are certain details of a partnership or contractual arrangement that you can now resolve, though I would offer you one reminder. Consensus, or mutual agreement, is reached based on values. The specifics tend to follow gracefully once the fundamental values are understood and agreed to by all the parties involved. You and a partner may have a tendency to re-hash details lingering from a prior incarnation of the discussion. Plenty seems unresolved; but in many ways the details are irrelevant. In making a return to this subject, I suggest you work with a goal of going to the next level: that is, a deeper level. What are your shared goals? What meaning do you both agree is of primary importance? A conversation focused on circumstantial details will likely evade the deeper ones. In your case, deeper means really deep. In a sense, it’s fair to say that no other person is involved; any involvement with anyone else is superficial when contrasted to the inner depths you are bei ng summoned to plumb by your own soul. What you’re seeing on the display screen of the outer world is a kind of projection of your distant past, including that of your family. I could probably write a book chapter about this based on this month’s charts, but I will sum it up in a question: what is the true nature of commitment? Clue: take the issue back one century, or three generations.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
It’s time to consider the concept ’selfish’ with only the most positive implications. You have a need to take care of others; that goes without saying. Yet the time has arrived for this in no way, form or design to include the concept of being a victim of that impulse. Therefore, put yourself and your needs first. This is in service of your greater agenda: the whole thing. At this point you may still be wavering on the notion of prioritizing your personal agenda, whatever that might be. The logic might not be clear, though your resentment level is the most accurate measure of whether you need to adjust your course. There’s nothing violent or dramatic about this, though you may secretly fear reprisal: deal with that issue. I am suggesting a day-to-day exercise that will guide you to make different decisions than you’ve made in the past. Whatever you may think now, by the time Jupiter and Uranus arrive in Aries later in the spring, a new kind of logic will take over your life. You can wait, but you’ve had many tests of your prior logic, and you keep coming up with the same basic results. Underneath all your emotions and reactions and ideas about what you may want is a question: how could it be vaguely possible that your life doesn’t matter? Get this one right and you will finally feel like you’ve pointed your airplane down the runway.

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.

Eric Francis is now offering online astrology readings as part of Cosmic Confidential, the 2010 annual edition of Planet Waves. Check this link for more information.

Dear Friend and Reader:

If you are reading this, you survived some of the must tumultuous, shocking astrology in nearly a decade. Yet the truth is, what we lived through in December and January was like the weekend-long training ride that American Youth Hostels required for everyone taking the summer-long, coast-to-coast bicycle trip. I suggest that you put the events of the past two months to a thorough review and make an inventory of everything you learned, or wish you learned.

February brings in a whole new dimension of astrology: I dare say easier, but in truth, with a new agenda and a new sense of adventure. There are, of course, always two sides to the story. For example, the Chiron-Neptune conjunction finally peaks early in the month. That is about seeing clearly and embracing the truth of the world. But to do that, you might have to survey quite a bit of damage and pain and make room in your spiritual philosophy for what that means, without just turning the other way.

Phase two of the Saturn-Pluto square that is shaking up so much, so deeply, is also in full force right now. Change is possible, but to have that change happen, we need to be willing to risk losing the benefits of whatever stability we have. We need to meet the forces that exist to perpetuate fear and hold back progress, most of which come from within our own minds. It’s easy to be brave in a yoga studio; it’s more challenging when you find yourself getting involved in the kind of movements for social justice that your mother told you a hundred times were too dangerous to bother with. This is another way of saying, you can have a whole bunch of fun and contribute to progress as long as you’re not scared of your own shadow material.

Jupiter is now in Pisces, which is great — as long as you know how to use sensuality, wine and erotic play as vehicles for transformation, and as long as comfort does not make you complacent. Jupiter in Pisces is about depositing moralism into the nearest toxic waste dump, which is another way of saying, it’s about figuring out that guilt is quite literally a thing of the past.

As you sit here reading these words, the world is heading for one of the most stunning awakenings of both individual and group consciousness that we have seen in four decades, or longer. Yet to embrace this means taking full responsibility for the decisions we make as individuals. We must slough off the toxic conformity that has characterized the past 30 years of American history, and embrace the adventure of existence as the bold and honest people we’ve been saying we were for so long. Cousins: the time has come.

Yours & truly,

Aries (March 20-April 19)
Your charts suggest strongly that you are making some decision involving marriage. You might be thinking of creating a marriage or of ending one; or you are formulating your thoughts on the subject. Here is what I see: You have a concept that marriage simplifies things. This is consistent with the old expression ‘tying the knot’. There’s nothing so simple going on, however. In truth, your charts present a complex situation regarding not just a relationship, but also your whole idea of what a relationship is. What I suggest is that you shift the entire thought process from ‘relationship’ to yourself. The most important relationship is the one you have with you. When we confuse our inner relationship with the one we have with others, that is called projection. It may not be literally true that whatever you are saying about, or appreciate about, or dislike, in others is true of you; but you would be wise to look for the connection points. In this project, you will learn something from photos. Photos are interesting because they are historical documents and projection screens. Photographs of you, of loved ones, family photos and in particular wedding photos will tell you a lot right now, in the sense of providing useful information. At the moment, certain pictures will paint a thousand words.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
Nearly every Taurus I know is struggling with their career. This seems to be a life-theme of your sign. Let’s pretend that has something to do with all the activity in Aquarius, your career house. Going back quite a long way — five years, 10 years, even 15 years, depending on how you count — there’s been constant change, movement and an odd sense of insecurity about what you want to do, or what you ’should be doing’. You’ve had plenty of ideas along the way, some of them excellent, but less in the way of traction or stability. Perhaps you know what you want, not how to make it work for you. Remember that most of our experiences train us to compromise passion and curiosity, or to expect certainty and incontrovertible correctness of the plan. Sure, that happens. More often, we find ourselves involved with events, uncertain where they will lead. Through many such experiments, we can arrive in an interesting place. What you have going on is subtler than either of those usual paths. At the moment, you have a rare perspective (think of it as visual, from a high place) that you didn’t have before. Use it to observe the ways you have been conditioned to not know what you want; to want what others want for you; and to doubt your own ideals, for the sake of others. What would your life be like, if you moved all that out of the way?

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
Last month’s Mercury retrograde was pretty impressive, and its affects are still working out. For you, it was all about agreements. You tend to live your life trying to figure out what others expect from you, rather than determining what you want. In the tangle of opinions, obligations and pushing and pulling and sorting out the details, I trust you’ve learned to make this distinction. It’s not only okay to want; whatever the Buddhists may say, desire is your organizing principle. It’s the value by which you decide what to decide: including what to do and who to associate with. Jupiter in Pisces, which just crossed the potent midheaven angle of your solar chart, is offering you a wildcard of desire. This may be arriving as an idea or a vision; or it may be an opportunity you’re not sure is solid. I promise you one thing: this qualifies as something different. It may take you a few weeks to catch on, but now that you have a clue, I suggest you look carefully and make a decision while you’re still excited. One of the distinctions between this and the kind of opportunity you’re accustomed to involves going beyond your usual sense of scale, to something much wider: so wide, indeed, that you may not recognize it for what it is, or selling yourself short because this seems too good to be true.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
Life would be easier, were the playing field level. Usually it’s not; and it’s slippery, and some people cheat. The deeper issue, though, is what game you are playing, and the rules that you apply. Deeper still is making sure you take full authority over your own life. Two games show up on the radar as being particularly dangerous to your peace of mind. One is retribution; the other is teasing. It’s possible to tease yourself, and it’s possible to get revenge on yourself: if humans are good at two things, it is luring themselves with what is unavailable, and self-loathing (in its many subtle forms). Remember that guilt is not an indicator that you are wrong. Rather, it suggests you have an issue to work out, potentially that you don’t believe your life is your life. It’s altogether better if we get those around us on board with the process of mutually freeing ourselves from guilt. But you don’t need anyone’s permission; that’s part of the game. When we feel guilty the tendency is to blame ourselves or seek forgiveness; a better approach is to offer forgiveness for what you think has been done to you. It may indeed be unclear who is responsible for what, or who is perpetuating any dysfunction; account for the ways you are perpetuating anything distasteful to you, and change your act on the spot.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
There has hardly been a more magnificent time to get clear on the intentions of your relationships. Indeed, it is happening without your deliberate intervention; you seem to be coming into alignment both with yourself and with the people around you. In an odd way, this quality is morphing from your sense of individuality to your sense of mutual purpose in one-to-one experiences; and this is shifting your group encounters. By alignment, I mean sense of purpose and mutual understanding of one another’s most important values. One of your gifts to the world is to love people despite their seeming flaws, and to hold yourself out with dignity as a whole person, understanding perfectly well that you’re not perfect. You now have an opportunity to see how those seeming imperfections provide sources of strength and awareness. This really is the key to enlightenment, in these days when one of the most pressing psychological issues is self-loathing, and when the lack of self-understanding seems to verge on total. It’s deep in your nature to use mistakes, misunderstandings and paradoxes as footholds for learning and awareness; it’s good times when the people around you get into that same mode, and that is approximately what you have going on now. In simple terms, everything is an opportunity to raise awareness. Every seeming fact implies a question. How you see yourself directly influences how you see others.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
You may not have counted the rewards of so much restless instability in your relationships, going back so many years. The planetary setup has not lent itself to your romantic ideals; you probably canceled your subscription to Modern Bride in 2004. Yet one benefit of what you’ve been through has been to take nothing, and nobody, for granted. There has been no prefabricated scenario that was supposed to come true; you developed a knack for liking and loving people despite their wild oddities, despite what your parents would think; despite what you thought you would think. People have pushed you and challenged your beliefs and made sure you couldn’t hide in your mental box for long. In moments when spontaneous changes happened, you learned to move on. You leaned to envision the future rather than obsess over the past. But something has been missing: a degree of comfort, a space of authentic respite, an actual sense of benefit. Over the past year, you have gained an unusual new depth of clarity and focus, and I imagine you determined that was an omen of positive developments to come. Let that clarity give you the discernment to know healthy, loving influences when they manifest for you. You have been through enough, over enough time, for this to be truly possible. Lay down that restlessness for a while and open the door to love.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
You are not really caught in a situation you cannot get out of — but someone else may really be certain they are. You cannot convince them of the reality of their situation; but you can figure out for yourself that you have options. Having options is another way of saying that you are at a turning point. I suggest you make peace with the possibility that someone you care about may not quite see themselves at that place where a decision is necessary; to the contrary, they may be at a point of maximum chaos and confusion. Even on a good day, you have little choice but to negotiate with the world on your own terms. You are, at least, aware of your situation, and that provides the closest thing to a guarantee that you are going to work it out sooner rather than later. The risk you run is getting drawn into someone else’s drama, their romantic ideals, or their sense of fragmentation. Keep an eye on that third one. It’s the one most likely to drive you nuts, because when people are feeling fragmented those around them tend to respond in fragments. Note, the issue that is troubling them is likely to be a past idea of what a relationship should be, and the way that gets tangled up in the simple reality of life. Give the situation till mid-March to work out; I think it will.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
You may be questioning your treatment of someone important to you. You have become deeply sensitive to how someone feels in the environment of your emotions. In any form of emotional healing, step one is getting beyond the guilt that is so deeply entrenched in our relationships. The usual way to do that is by ‘not caring’, and obviously that’s not the answer: you would not be here unless you cared. One way to process guilt is to forgive yourself so that you can forgive everyone else. Most guilt, indeed, nearly all of what we think others think, is projection. Projection is something that is happening internally that we are then perceiving or ascribing to some experience or event ‘outside ourselves’. Just like you cannot write on a movie screen and change the plot, you cannot write on the world or on your relationships and change the underlying feelings. That is why you have to start with you. One thing that is clear is the extent to which you are subject to group dynamics. Much of what you’re dramatizing in your relationships right now involves what happened to you as a child; and that, in turn, created a situation where you don’t feel safe being yourself. So, let’s short-circuit this whole psychological process and summarize it as one question: what would you do if you felt absolutely safe being exactly who you are?

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
I’ve noticed something about some Sagittarians I know, which is that they don’t seem to mind living in half-renovated places. I guess when you feel like you came from a different galaxy, living on Earth like it’s a camping trip isn’t so bad; so you don’t mind if your house is wrapped in Tyvek or your bedroom floor is made of plywood as long as it keeps out the rain. Or do you? Jupiter has arrived in Pisces, which is the place we look for information about the home environment of Sagittarius. I suggest you take a series of swift steps to transform your home into someplace you’re actually comfortable. Finish work in progress; make a list of anything that’s broken or out of place and repair or remove it. Get someone who knows Feng Shui to come and help you arrange things to maximize the efficiency of energy flow. Clean, clean, clean — with Dr. Bronner’s soap and water, not chemicals. If you don’t like where you are, now is the time to make an easy move to someplace better. All of this will have useful material effects, and the sense of closure that you get from fixing that which was long broken will help you feel more settled, like you’re here on the planet to stay for a while; and your home is a place where others who love you feel welcome.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
Do you know those email things designed to prevent you from writing to people if you’re drunk? The one with a series of arithmetic questions to make sure you’re clear enough to handle yourself? I suggest installing one of those on your entire life this month. Be careful what you do under the influence of any substance; ‘do’ includes say and do; it includes what you don’t do; and most of all, this includes how you respond to what you feel and what you think. You’re under a mix of influences that could lead you to act uncharacteristically: impulsively, or ‘not really coming from you’. Your emotional confusion is calling on you to take conscious, careful steps with the people you love, particularly with yourself. This month’s planetary setup won’t prevent you from feeling clearly who you are, unless of course you let it do so. Yet you must be especially careful with substances, which will emphasize some emotions over others, sometimes contradictory. In itself this is not a bad thing: every emotion is valuable for what it teaches you. It’s just that you don’t want to act on certain darker sentiments; better to acknowledge and make peace with them. To give another example, if you want to have sex with someone on a few glasses of wine, first make sure they’re still interesting when all you’ve had is a coffee — preferably not the next day.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
Why are you the way you are? You seem to have lost contact with your motives — which you’re finally figuring out, now that you’re back in the groove of listening to them again. In the journey of awakening, you’re in that delicate space of playing snooze tag with yourself, only it’s not a single day you’re preparing to embark on; it’s the rest of your life. Denial is a peculiar state, unique to human consciousness: the ability, in essence, to pretend we’re not aware of something that we are actually aware of. Denial presumes that there is something to deny; and that we have a motive to keep it from awareness. If you notice that you’re struggling to admit something to yourself, break it down into what that something is, and why you might not want to acknowledge it. While you’re pondering that, here is another question: is this whole thing a dance around how you were treated as a child? Are you covering up for someone else’s psychological stance toward you? Once that pattern is established, it can establish a pattern that the mind copies, which then propagates and takes root in many other relationships. See if you can get to the original motive; the original transaction that led you to learn any mode of response that involved pretending or denying that something obviously true was not. Get clear about that and much else will come into focus.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
For a long time, longer than you may care to admit, you’ve grown accustomed to a certain kind of progress in your life: behind the scenes, or in theory, or in principle. Fortunately, you have a rich inner life, and this enables you to stay interested in existence even in times when movement is slow or invisible, or when fulfillment seems unlikely. Yet this has caused you to live in two worlds: one being a world where so much is happening, and where you can envision what is possible; and another where the people around you seem oblivious to their own potential and where potential, in general, seems frozen. Get ready for something different. Jupiter arriving in your sign is going to do a lot in a short time, all of it in visible, tangible ways. If you write plays, you may find them suddenly being produced on the live stage. If you write books, you are likely to discover people interested in publishing you. If you drum alone, you will surely find other drummers. What was solitary can now become social; what you were sure was worthless to the world now suddenly may have a high value. Yet to manifest this potential, you must do what is perhaps the most challenging thing for a Pisces: think in a forward direction; exist outside your previous states of confinement; leave behind your prior role of victim of existence for your new role as benefactor.

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:

In 12 years of writing annual horoscopes — as of this year, one edition for every sign of the zodiac — I’ve never looked at the charts and thought: Man, I’m glad I’ve been at this for a while. Not until now, that is.

Given the care with which my words are read, I do my best to get it right. I do this knowing there’s not really a right to be got. Astrology is interpretive. When I suggest what is happening in your life or what theme might offer some insight or comfort, I’m using intuition to guide me through a wide range of choices shown in the charts. So I need an internal ideal to aim for; and for me that is following the planets in the direction of a compassionate unfolding of our personal stories. I look for the best possibilities in the aspects, and at the same time I view them as calculus equations to be resolved creatively. The planets never present a problem without offering a solution. The art of astrology is about working your way from one to the other, then putting that into words.

When the sky is really amazingly exciting, I’ve learned to take a mellow approach to describing it. It would be easy to get caught in all the promise and forget the obstacles that so often crop up on the way to getting there. Those are generally interior: false beliefs we hold about ourselves; our relationship commitments, which are not designed to help us open our potential as much as to offer a kind of delicate stability; our emotional entanglements, which eat energy but which don’t feed us; our fears and that lurking sense of not quite belonging. I try to get underneath these and see them as the temporary situations that they are; not as actual problems. If I’ve addressed the points of resistance or the stumbling blocks, maybe I’ve helped open the way to your potential. I offer some ideas; you do the work (and often send some great ideas back).

Now, part of me knows I’ve got a lot of nerve believing we can live the lives we want, when everything is getting so weird. But living a good life is economical. For anyone aware, it amounts to food, creative love and an authentic way to connect with the world around us. That world, however, is currently a mess, and we know it’s going to get a lot messier if we don’t do our part. So why exactly focus on reaching for the best life has to offer? Well, what else are we supposed to do? I believe we’re a lot more useful to our community and the process of humanity’s growth when we’re in creative mode rather than hung-up, depressive, creatively malnourished robotic mode. Obviously. Well, maybe not so obviously. I will explain; or perhaps seduce you with a few ideas.

For the past few years, the astrology has been gradually ramping up. We left behind the challenges that defined the Cheney-Bush years: aspects that came along with the stolen election and Sept. 11 and the big hurricanes of 2005. With those aspects came plenty of crisis and growth, but even more deferral of the real material we need to be addressing. That is twofold: one, our inner struggle for healing and awareness; and two, taking part in a creative solution. Most of the cost we’ve paid is pretending we can put off taking care of inner problems that delay our lives, and pretending that we don’t make a difference.

Through 2009, the astrology shifted into what I am describing as the 2012 configuration, and we are now in a brief, relatively calm moment before the energy ramps up exponentially. True, the planets between the December solstice and mid-January are like a teacup ride. But that’s very small stuff compared to what is coming. I don’t have time for the details here, but at the end of this article I’ll tell you where to find them.

Twenty-twelve configuration means that some of the most energetically packed planets are aligning with Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn: the cardinal points, or summarized in astrology as the Aries Point. The focus is on the first degree of Aries: a conjunction of Jupiter and Uranus in the first degree of Aries. This meets up with Pluto, newly in Capricorn; and Saturn, newly in Libra. That happens on June 8, with plenty of excitement along the way there.

The last time we experienced anything vaguely resembling this was the summer of 1969: Woodstock, the Moon landing, the Manson murders and much else changing not just the world, but our cosmology. We know the cultural ethos back then was more about getting involved; getting together; thinking in terms of potential and not just survival. The energy of 2010 is the first experience that makes the Sixties astrology look like a walk in the park. Our survival is indeed at stake, but we need a creative approach. We need to face our own challenges and those of humanity with the idea that we can, if we try, create a much better world than the one we now know of.

When the energy rises like this, many people feel it as something passionate. Yet for those who are struggling with obstacles, it can be extremely frustrating. We can find ourselves at a moment of awesome potential with nothing but chores to take care of. I suggest we remember that we’re in a moment of quickening. There are no shortcuts to growth, but there are moments of rapid acceleration, and we’re about to stroll into one of them. The horoscopes you have below are the short version of Cosmic Confidential, the 2010 annual edition of Planet Waves. The full edition (available at CosmicConfidential.com) offers you a truly excellent, extended astrology reading at a very economical cost. Astrology is efficient. And borrowing from Tim Leary, the current map says: tune in, turn on and get involved. Surely some revelation is at hand.

Yours & truly,

(March 20-April 19)
Yes, you are still searching for yourself, and still trying to find your voice. This takes a while, and it’s always worth the effort. But I would ask you: how much of your struggle ‘finding yourself’ involves figuring out what you want? And how much involves being honest with yourself about what you want? In another universe, one where personal volition (and its twin, personal responsibility) were actually honored, this might not be the primary question. Yet in a world where we have the right to desire, but so little self-awareness and nearly no sense that our choices matter, that is another question.

You’re becoming bolder about your quest for inner awareness, if only out of dire necessity, though more likely you’ve felt what a rush it is to wake up to your own beauty. Yet at times I am sure you wonder where you’re going to find the energy and motivation to work through the kinds of limitations you feel confronted by every day. Recently, you’ve been willing to look right into the face of your internal challenges, and not be as daunted as in the past. You see your challenges as an obstacle to something, which means something you want; and as a result you’re noting that it in fact exists. You could far more easily be direct with yourself, and suspend the guilt trip that stands between you and your right to exist.

You’re in a focusing phase right now. You are literally learning to see, to feel and to sense the future. Much of this involves an evaluation of your environment, and the ways in which you’re influenced by the people around you. You’re also deeply impacted by numerous messages that come from advertising, so-called news and from imitation culture. Choose your influences carefully. Be careful who you look to for a reflection. Even as you find your freedom, you have the not-so-small matter of authority creeping into your life everywhere. One of the most significant themes of your immediate and long-term astrology involves redefining your relationship to that which has power over you: and beware, most of these factors are hidden. Find the courage to challenge any authority when your moment of absolute awakening arrives: and that moment is approaching rapidly.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
What keeps your mental horizon so narrow, when all you want to do is open your perception and experience your life for what it can truly be? You seem to live within two entirely different perceptual frameworks, which alternate and at times conflict with one another. You might say you have two different value systems that are trying to function at the same time, independently of one another. I would propose that this split runs in two-month cycles. You seem to alternate in your goals and intentions a little more often than once per season, which constantly knocks you out of focus and seems to put you at cross-purposes with yourself. Yet you can use these fluctuations like a rock climber uses gravity for leverage.

If you opened the doors to self-perception, you would see the world as a place that constantly changes, and you would embrace yourself as someone adapting to this as an ongoing adventure. You don’t need stability; you need immediate flexibility, particularly in your beliefs. You know you’re not someone who embraces change warmly or easily; and this alone is a source of resistance. One frequent result of this tension is the constant, subtle fear that ‘everything is going to be different’, which could be alleviated by embracing the truth that if you seek growth, you must be friends with movement, progress and the unfamiliar.

Resistance has an energy source. The emotional tenor of what you’re working through is fear. This in turn is disguised as guilt, obligation and the choking feeling that ’someone is running my life’. If that someone is one of your parents (whether near or far, dead or alive), first check in with your mother. Describe her karma to yourself: her life story, expressed as what she never did that she wanted to do (and why). Note how religion shaped her mind, and consider how those values, whether dressed in religious language or not, are the ones you might need to address the most directly. Guilt is a religiously generated emotion, meaning that it would not exist without the underlying fear of what some remote, impersonal ‘god’ might think of you. Certain people in your life have their own ideas; you have yours. You will be a lot happier when you recognize the difference.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
How is your intuition? I mean: do you listen? Do you even know when it’s doing the talking? Do the hints you get tend to work with or against the things you know intellectually? Or do you override what your subtle sense tells you? Most likely, you alternate among the possibilities, never quite sure what internal voice to accept as valid. This, you call confusion. Yet because your intuition so often proved itself correct in hindsight, you probably fight with yourself about this issue on a fairly regular basis. You have powerful analytical skills, though analysis does not proceed by itself; it’s guided by beliefs. Often enough, your intuition contradicts your established beliefs, or your notion of what you want to be true. That’s the issue.

More often lately, what other people want from you contradicts your sense of what is right for you, though it’s been surprisingly challenging for you to stand up to those influences. They seem to carry so much gravity. So there are really two matters on the docket: one is your relationship to yourself, as described by the intuition versus intellect issue; and the other is how you’re influenced by people who seem to have extraordinary power in your life; most recently, financial and sexual power. Both money and sex experienced as power have one thing in common: fear.

We could boil this discussion down to one theme: how do you handle fear? I suggest you start by calling it what it is. Drop the concepts anxiety, agitation, judgment, embarrassment and uncertainty. They are all forms of one thing, which is rarely grounded in reality. See if you can spot the habit of self-attack, and notice how much it costs you in the way of life force and peace of mind. Study when you go into automatic mode. You justify this as being ‘on the go’ or a way to ‘get it all done’, but the cost taken from this is the self-awareness necessary to keep you in a loving and relatively clear state of mind. The decision to go into auto-mode, while it has mental effects, is actually an emotional response. And now for the payoff question: from whom did you learn that habit? Once you know that, you will learn a lot more besides.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
You have so much to offer, and the deep need to share it. If you could make peace with this fact of your existence, your life would be so much simpler. And if astrology is any indication, you will have some extraordinary opportunities to share and make your mark as the next few seasons unfold. These are likely to be disguised as unprecedented success and an expanded role in the world.

Yet often you have your doubts of that role. Simply put, you have long been nursing an injury to your confidence. And when you look at it and question that sense of injury, it can seem ridiculous. Here is an analogy: On Earth, people and industry are constantly digging their energy out of the ground as coal and oil, which we burn, to our detriment. The Sun is giving off energy constantly, but the notion of gathering that energy still seems like an exotic concept. Now, if you were the Sun, would you take this personally?

As a person, especially one as sensitive as you are, you do take it personally. You not only wonder why people are not more receptive of your generosity; you devote yourself to life, then make value judgments about yourself based on their lack of response. Here’s where what I will call the fictional piece enters the equation. You make up a story about your personal worth based on what you think that others think. This is, in turn, colored by your perceptions. Consider this equation as you continue your long-overdue overhaul of your outdated ideas about relationships.

Focus on trust, above all else. There is a vast issue in the world about people not trusting being nourished; not trusting those who offer nourishment; and a good bit of resentment to go along with this global emotional mess. You may think you need love and be loved. What I propose you need are bonds based on mutual understanding, grounded expectations and a foundation of goodwill. If you falter in your trust of yourself, you will open the door to those who you don’t trust. You can be sure this has happened when you encounter resentment. Therefore, if you want to enjoy your success — or even notice it — you must be vigilant, and hold yourself in high esteem.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
Nobody would accuse you of being an introvert, but sometimes the most outgoing people are the most inwardly focused. You know this about yourself, and it’s challenging because you feel like it’s your destiny to have attention focused on you. The circumstances of your life call you out into the world of leadership. Yet your sensitive heart and soul call you ever inward. Your transits this year provide support for that deep inner search, one that could best be described as an exploration of your spiritual beliefs. By spiritual, I mean that which defies the world’s expectations, laws and rules; that dimension of you that identifies with ethics: considered by most something impossible to attain.

I just described this as ’spiritual’, but for you it’s one of the worldliest things you think about: the necessity for personal responsibility. This is one reason why traditional religion holds so little appeal to you. Nearly all religions project what they think of as God outwardly, and in a way that is parental and removes one’s own direct involvement. Religion is most often used as a way to dump responsibility for our personal choices. Your natural tendency is to be in direct relationship with God or Goddess within. That divine entity, expressing itself in human form, is what embraces every facet of human nature. That is your first mission of the coming seasons of your life: to directly experience and understand the light and dark aspects of who you are, and to act only when you’ve checked in with both ’sides’ of yourself.

As you move through this territory, you may experience the sometimes-tense relationship between you and your potential. You know you’re capable of so much, and while it would not be fair to say you think you fall short, you know that you’re capable of far more. There’s an adventure for you here, more than there is a learning task. The way to do better work is to go deeper into the quest. You seem determined to develop habits that make you more efficient, though I would suggest that work methods that allow spontaneous growth and your passion for a challenge are the ones to experiment with. As usual, much in the world depends on your contribution, and for that grounding and sense of purpose, you can be thankful.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
The ancient story of Virgo is about giving birth to yourself every day, and this is the focus of your spiritual journey right now. You nourish the inner seeds of your creative process, which is a self-creative process; and these seeds emerge into the world as things with a life of their own. When you take responsibility for this process, you create things that nourish you. When you step back and don’t take responsibility, the results can be damaging. You know that self-expression is a double-edged sword; but rather than being afraid of this, a more useful approach would be to grow in your self-mastery.

To say you’re actively working to liberate yourself would be the understatement of your lifetime. Thanks to Pluto in Capricorn, you can now free energy from all the stuck places in your creative and sexual core. You’re learning how to take chances; and finally updating the stale tradition of being terrified of yourself (or feeling guilty for existing) that was inflicted on you as a child. You’re learning to both grow up and contact the passionate kid you were at the same time. As you do so, you will need to confront and process some of the toxic emotions that come along with having had your creativity stuffed down when you were younger. Working through those murky shadows is precisely what will drive your creative process forward.

Many adults feel that ‘personal expression’ is at best childish and egotistical, and at worst a distraction from what really matters. This is a cover-up for how anyone taking an authentic creative risk threatens their ego. Regardless, you’ve discovered that if you don’t indulge in actual expression of your ideas and feelings, you feel trapped; and if you open up, you experience life as a happier, more grounded person. Nothing will do more to set you free from the past, and from your own sense of past limitations. You will be more inclined to notice the incredible gifts that are being offered to you. Those gifts — if you receive them — are opportunities to respond, to mature, and most meaningfully, to you, to serve. For you who know that you have no choice but to serve others, you will do this the most effectively when you are at your most passionate.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
I’m flying to Paris to write your annual horoscope this year. Paris, that museum city; with its formal elegance and its occasional bursts of the completely outrageous. It’s a place where everything is tastefully done; where the store windows are worth the whole trip. There is something serious about these strongly Libra-influenced people. While they can be annoying at times, their creativity will almost always manifest as dedication to both aesthetics and quality.

There is a difference between these two things, of course — and that difference is part of what you’re now discovering. It’s no longer so easy for you to hide behind your shell; you’ve become acutely aware of when you’re doing so. You can retreat; you can hide away; but you keep finding yourself there. The profound change to your psychic structure (that is, your personality shell) is that the facades that used to work so well no longer make you feel safe; they no longer convince anyone of anything, particularly yourself. As a result, you may feel especially vulnerable; and that’s just part of the story. Your whole inner emotional structure is being rearranged. Compartments of suppressed feeling are cracking open. Memories you had no concept of are coming back to you. Your relationship to your history is changing as a result. Assumptions about the meaning of past events that long went unquestioned are suddenly yielding to vital new information.

All of this is leading in one direction — profound self-renewal. If you think this process is going too fast, I suggest you take a bold step and allow it to go a little faster. Get out of your own way. Other factors in your astrology suggest that by June, your world will be rocked by extraordinarily exciting events (including relationships, opportunities for travel or involvement with some kind of international culture) that will challenge you to be as alive as you can be. When these experiences come your way, you will want to respond to them in the most direct way; to miss nothing, and to embrace the journey with your full being. This will call for vulnerability and the willingness to embrace change passionately — qualities that will initiate from the inside out, and which before long you will be meeting face to face.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
Somewhere deep in the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien is the idea that in our tenuous lives here on Earth, we should be glad that even the least of our desires comes to fruition. Most of us want more than that; we are a society composed largely of people that want everything, and for whom nothing is ever enough. I say this because of the extremely delicate state of your professional ambitions, and in honor of the thin line you are walking. In some ways, it seems that you’re barely entitled to an ‘ambition’, and even like the desire for more could jeopardize the little that you have.

The planets suggest you take your quest for success inward for a while, seeking an understanding of your true motives. You can no longer act on desire without a strong concept of why that desire matters; which is another way of saying you need to discover what you want. This involves not merely diving into your emotional world (you’ve done plenty of that lately) and seeking clarity (you have succeeded in many ways) but also projecting yourself into the world and determining who you must be in relationship to everything that surrounds you. You’re being called to connect who you are on the deepest level with the world you see around you.

Clearly, this is not going to happen in the usual blaze ahead, take it off-road method of our society, or by doing what you were told to do. Neither method was as productive as they promised. Imagine, instead, that time has stopped; and that what a second ago was the present moment has instantaneously become the past. You’re able to move around and explore in this frozen world. You’re seemingly alone, in a dimension that you can only see but with which you cannot interact. Now, at least, you’re relieved of the mirage of an exchange. Move slowly through this world. Look carefully, remembering that what you see is colored by your vision. Feel deeply into your senses for any sign of heat or movement. Look carefully for what actually responds to your awareness: for what speaks to you directly and wants to exchange energy with you. What responds to your presence in this crystallized world is what’s truly part of you.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
Of all the challenges you’ve faced during the past decade, seeking emotional stability ranks highest on the list. For you, this is the promised land of personal sovereignty. You’re something of a high roller. You like that feeling of roller-skating on a slick floor as you make an airplane reservation on your BlackBerry. And that, to my thinking, has concealed not only a deep desire to be stable, but also your lurking fear that it may not be possible. Yet much has changed in the past 12 months. You seem to have been through something that has granted you an actual measure of peace of mind; that is the main ingredient of a balanced existence.

Along the way, you have given up certain trappings and seeming necessities that were not working for you. One of them is your relationship to your family; it took you a while to be honest about the deception lurking there, or at least about why that environment was so difficult for you. It’s come down to you deciding that you were not going to believe the lies that other people believed. It’s easier not to believe lies you’re told. Yet to cast off what a whole culture (in this case, your family of origin) accepts as the stock and trade of wholesome truth is the work of a revolutionary. And the result can, indeed, be destabilizing. This, by the way, is why those who adhere to what is obviously not true tend to do so: they at lest have ground beneath their feet, even if it’s not solid.

You have given up this chaos in exchange for something far more useful: the ability to sustain awareness no matter how little you have to stand on. Not content to live on quicksand, you have learned how to dive deep into your feelings. Refusing an easy answer, you have taken years to explore your personal truth and where it connects to some much greater truth. And you are still changing as fast as ever. Yet now, having cultivated yourself this way, you are confronted by the issue of how exactly to express yourself in a productive way. And I would ask: what are you afraid of the most? That is the invitation.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
Your mission is to be who you are independently of the momentum or intentions of your family of origin. I recognize that among modern writers and certainly among astrologers, I am suspicious of the ‘hidden’ (but blatantly obvious) negative influences of family on individuals; such is not currently in vogue. On the surface, the taboo involves how people who are themselves parents are less likely to openly question the neglect and abuse at the hands of their own parents, recognizing how difficult it is to raise children. We need to go deeper than denial, if we have any plans of healing the world or healing our lives. I’m suggesting that it’s time for you to wage a revolt against your early socialization, regardless of anyone’s opinion.

Family affects us several ways, all of which deserve a careful, extended review. First, family grants us life, though that often assumes that we owe our life back to it. Then family imprints us with its values, in its own chaotic, narcissistic image. Last, the Trojan horse of guilt is installed so that we go into paralysis anytime we try to digress a single millimeter from the agenda. Fear kicks in, because we are terrified of being without the structure that allegedly supports us, though we’ve done no actual study of whether this is true. More often the ’support’ manifests as a battle waged when we try to make up our own minds about anything at all; or an internal conflict ensues, as if we’re being challenged by some absolute authority.

The combined action of Saturn and Pluto says that you are the only actual authority in your life. This is a matter of both growth and of opportunity, which at this point depend on one another. You’re being called upon to stand up to the challenges of your own evolution; indeed, to define your whole existence as one who evolves. You’re evolving past the ‘every man for himself’ attitude that’s been pounded into humanity for so long. You are replacing it with a more elegant vision of tribal awareness, where cooperation is honored and where the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. In such a world, freedom is not a privilege, but a precious responsibility. And in a word, this is leadership.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
You depend on your intelligence; there are few more valid astrological truisms than descriptions of that unique Aquarian gift of reason, rationality and the kind of cleverness that lends itself impeccably to engineering. Yet your astrology is now calling you in a different psychic direction. You have by now felt the strong pull toward organizing your life around hearth and home. You have observed your intuition go from something that you doubted to something that you depend upon like a trusted friend.

This journey is related to something else you’re going through, which is evaluating, questioning and rejecting so many of the things you believed in the past. What you are seeing is that often, you perceived they were true because you believed in them. You’ve learned to take nothing for granted. Now a new clarity is taking over your life, based on a deep devotion to accurate perception that you’re embracing eagerly. For years along the way to this moment, it has seemed as if something was being taken away from you — as if your ideals were losing validity, which was a personal loss. Yet having discarded so much as false, you now have room for what is true and authentic. Having seen yourself for who you are, you can afford to allow others to witness your life. You have no need for ‘idealization’.

One theme you’ve become concerned with is justice, which is a worthy mission on Earth. There seems to be so little of it in the world, and you know you have something to offer here. I suggest you start on the controversial subject of love, where supposedly all is fair and for many, is akin to war. This is the first place to seek justice; love bestows incredible power, particularly over those whose lives have been defined by isolation. You’re the one in the position of holding a standard of fairness, which begins with authenticity. You are the one who sets the conditions on unconditional love, and the truth is, you can afford to be generous. This will connect you with a deep part of yourself that doesn’t always get a voice: a passionate maternal quality, which nourishes existence from the inside out.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
For years, you’ve worked to set yourself free from something: perhaps from the lies that you believed; from your sense of being trapped or isolated; from a world that does not appreciate how subtle and beautiful life is. Though that setting-free process is not over, you’ve made progress — far more than you recognize. I suggest you sum up what you’ve learned in the simplest possible terms. For example, it is easier to come up with an innovative solution to a problem than it is to go back and ‘fix’ the past. Remember that one; it will be useful.

Another thing I trust you’ve observed is that it pays to be direct. People have a hard time fathoming what you’re thinking, even though it seems clear to you. You can afford to be even more transparent, including with yourself. In fact, you can afford and will thrive on radical honesty: about who you are, what you value and your vision for your life. Everyone will benefit; many of the things you understand easily are difficult for others to grasp, or to even admit the existence of; yet much depends on your ability to make yourself understood.

Transparency involves letting go of any attachment to your image. It’s necessary to match your outer appearance with the actual person you are, especially with your friends and to partners. This seemingly daring move will liberate your energy, and help you feel safer on the planet — and this, you know, is a real challenge for you. You’re finally getting a handle on your fears. In this time when everything in your life is poised to become larger, more successful and more visible, processing fear at the point of origin is far easier than facing it in magnified form.

Here is something you can count on as you take your next bold steps: In your relationships, trust is more important than love; and both are more important than sex. Trust is the most challenging aspect of any human equation, and a tragically scarce commodity in the world. You’re personally working to break the tradition of broken trust. You’re on the hunt for many other dysfunctional traditions, yet what matters more are the innovations you create for yourself and offer to those around you. One of them involves self-worth. On this theme, you’re on the verge of your greatest breakthrough, akin to any of the brilliant inventions that have changed the world: only this is your world.

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.

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.

Dear Friend and Reader:

The Saturn-Pluto square is not over; its story has really just begun. The feeling of every important issue coming to a crunch point is typical of this aspect, but so too is a wave of fear in the population that can only be addressed by individuals willing to take their minds to another level of reality.

Thankfully, slow-movers such as Saturn and Pluto go through their cycle of an aspect in about nine months, or three seasons (this counts for personal transits as well, though the actual range of influence of any aspect is much longer). It’s vital to make adjustments through gradually working out of the process, rather than getting wrenched into a new reality in one eruption. Yes, eruptions still happen, but they are usually part of a gradual pressure release — and the sooner we initiate our changes, the better. One problem with this theory is that change often involves others, and human nature resists. Therefore, the best you can do is work on your own resistance.

And here, we have some help on the way. In December, we have two other amazing aspects, perhaps even better deserving of the description focal point: first Jupiter makes an exact conjunction to Chiron, in late Aquarius. This has been developing all year (there was a peak in the Northern Hemisphere springtime), though the Dec. 7 conjunction offers a new kind of vision — making it easier to see the world as one world, easier to participate and best of all, giving you a way to apply the knowledge that you’ve worked so hard to gain in the community that surrounds you.

Then later in the month, Jupiter makes a conjunction to Neptune, which has the feeling of opening up another dimension of what you might call invisible light, just at the dark time of year when we need it the most. These experiences are worth all the more if we’re open to them and recognize the change in energy when it happens. This one is subtle — it may come in through dreams, altered-state experiences and as an unusual kind of compassion in heightened states with loved ones or groups of friends.

Remember why you’ve been doing all this self-improvement — or why you want to. In my view, it’s not really about being a better person; rather, that makes something else possible, which is the ability to participate with the world in a meaningful way. Chiron is excellent at grounding the wisdom and potential of Jupiter in tangible ways.

The end of the year ends on an exciting note, which will take some expert navigation skills. There are three events.

Mars stations retrograde at the winter solstice, which lasts till early March (and will be visible in the night sky; the thing that obviously looks like Mars really is). The theme of this particular Mars retrograde (which happens in Leo, opposite many Aquarius planets) is where we stand as individuals in relationship to the many people who surround us — in particular, how we deal with the expectations of groups.

Then Mercury stations retrograde Dec. 26, which ends Jan. 15. The Mercury retrograde effect will actually start vibrating around Dec. 9 when Mercury enters what’s called shadow phase.

Finally, there is an eclipse of the Moon in the sign Cancer on New Year’s Eve. My advice: plan as little as possible for the holidays. If you can, stay close to home and keep things simple and cheap. The focus is inward, toward your growth, your family and how exactly you’re processing all these changes.

Yours & truly,

Aries (March 20-April 19)
Every person who dares to step out of their conditioning or routine and do something original goes through a crisis of whether their ideas or work will be accepted by others. The prevailing reason why people don’t express themselves involves the expectation of a negative reaction; of judgment; of some kind of consequences. Yet anyone who is interested in breaking free of this needs to take the journey inward and figure out what inner obstructions are breathing life into those fears. It’s convenient that this inner journey is some of the best fodder for the creative process, which is really about an inner journey. Most of the meaningful art and literature you find is more like a postcard from a deep inner space rather than being a “creative product” of any kind. Mars turning retrograde in the most creative and dynamic angle of your solar chart is saying that it’s time to plunge deep into these personal fires. The key is not what you create — it is what you learn about yourse lf, and in the process, document or illustrate. There is something hidden you are looking for: something about which you may have no clue. Think of it as ‘hidden karma’ or think of it as the pearl of great price. Remember, a journey is involved: a journey that will last for months, and whose destination is not clear.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
You are in the midst of a stroke of good fortune regarding what we here in the Western world call ‘profession’. The question lurking beneath this theme is, what do you profess? Who do you say you are, and what is its relationship to what you do, or want to do? It’s time to align your theories, your goals and your actions. It would help if you aspire to more than you think you are capable of. It would help if you accept, with total willingness, the need to inconvenience yourself in order to attain your stated objectives. When I say help, I mean truly assist you in getting out of your previous pattern. For you, any truly satisfying professional experience must be humanitarian in nature, though I propose you take a wide view of this concept; not ‘doing good’, but rather acting as if to hold the world together. There is an essential, even urgent ingredient involved in breaking out of your individualism and being willing to participate, and openly seek the cooperation of others. T his involves accepting the extent to which you have felt that you don’t fit in — and then daring to do something about it. That is a step on the way to something greater — what you might call locally aware global consciousness, and acting on that basis alone.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
Family financial arrangements may come up during the holiday season; I suggest you be prepared for the conversation, including remembering what I told you. Listen for the guilt trip and don’t fall for it. You risk being convinced you’re not an adult, i.e., that you have no power. You can minimize this with preventive strategies. First and most meaningful is to be absolutely on the level of your significant other. Agree what information you’re willing to reveal, and why you would reveal it. Anyone seeking information from you has something to hide, and is also looking for power. While I would not advocate being deceptive, it’s another matter entirely to have boundaries. Those boundaries might include outright avoiding anyone, anything or anyplace where you feel you have no business, or where your presence would detract from your own sense of integrity. I suggest you avoid alcohol entirely at any group gathering, no matter how tempting it may be as a sedative or painkiller; it is the elixir of deception, and in such a compromised state, you risk making significant errors in judgment. Stick close to the ones you truly love. One side benefit of all of this is that the sex promises to be incredible. Even if you don’t have a partner, think of someone you trust.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
This is a moment of extraordinary developments in your relationships; there is likely to be more than one that comes into prominence. I suggest you work with an expanded definition of relationship, for example, an emotionally moving encounter with anyone you care about. I suggest you remember your ethics and forget your expectations — particularly about what a relationship is, or what form it’s supposed to take. If you’ve been working to change your concepts in this area of your life, the opportunities you have now are likely to be the ones where you learn the basics, or rather, apply what you have worked so hard to learn. In endeavors of love, you want to encourage the feeling that you’re always at the beginning. Sincerity and simple directness will help you rise above any sense of overwhelm or the ‘power of the other’ that you may feel. The passion that you’re experiencing is coming from you, though others close to you may be a source of encouragement or inspiration: hot is hot, and the best thing you can do is submit to the beauty of that. While you’re doing this, be aware of everything that you’ve left behind: the history, the sense of identity, the crisis and turmoil; and if you feel yourself going in that direction, remind yourself that you have options, if you choose to explore them.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 23)
You’re one of the most skilled at this elusive thing of being yourself, this thing that so many people struggle with, or are terrified of. That’s partly because you know the difference between your image and your substance. Your relationships the past four seasons have provided you with many opportunities to make that distinction — but you’re just getting cooking. The primary key to this is and has always been that you strive to use your relationships as an experience to get to know yourself. Second key is that you understand that ’self’ is a spiritual concept and that as a direct consequence of this, ‘relationship’ is a spiritual concept — the most basic one there is. Both of these ideas now come out of the common sense background of your life and into full focus. This could mean a new level of understanding of what you’ve been exploring; it could mean that it’s time to return to some deeply held principles you’ve wandered from without intending to. Basically, the solution to any problem in a relationship, or any quest for realizing the potential of a relationship, or for creating a new experience, is to get to know yourself better. Use every experience as fodder for self-understanding and don’t be afraid to take that complex reflection you see in the universe as an image of yourself.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sep. 22)
You spend an inordinate amount of time and energy dealing with your fear, and you must be getting sick of it. There are many processes available to work this out, though I suggest you move away from anything that resembles an analytical approach. That is only likely to make matters worse. So, too, will eliminating the alleged ’sources’ of fear in your environment, or doing things to make yourself feel safer. Defensive measures will reinforce the idea that you have something to worry about. Seen through the lens of astrology, the issue looks existential in nature: you are dealing with fear based on fear of existing, and it then gets projected onto the many different facets of existence. That’s why it takes up residence so many places, so many ways. Considered another way, you may be caught in a fear of being yourself rooted in a deeper concern that you either don’t know who you are, questioning whether your deeper self exists. Suffice it to say, you exist and your existence go es all the way in, through an opening to a wider space of identity that we all share — and this is the space you are now searching for. You’ve tried to define yourself by comparing yourself to others, though I assure you: this is how we find conflict rather than common ground.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
You would do well to ask what is the source of all the upheaval in your life. No you weren’t expecting it, though somehow you were expecting it. You’re in a challenging process of dealing with the past, that is, with a past so deep that you don’t remember it, because most of it didn’t happen to you. It happened to your ancestors, and then you inherited it. From one perspective, your astrology illustrates a sense that you are being swallowed in history, that is, overwhelmed by all that you cannot change. Looked at another way, there is an almost violent process of breaking open locked compartments of emotion, history, karma and attachment to the past. This is combined with a stern wakeup call informing you that you must come to terms with who you are and what you want out of life, in short order. Part of what you are struggling with is false pressure; this process, such as it can be defined, will take longer than you think, so therefore you can afford to go one step at a time. Yet the other part of what you’re addressing is your tendency to avoid certain matters and thus have them fester. This is likely to be one of those circumstances where things seem to get worse before they get better, but in fact every step is a step toward healing.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
You will need your best Scorpio radar to navigate your professional life for the next few months, though I can boil matters down to a few basic concepts. First, pay attention to the ways you work against your own cause. This could be by focusing on goals that are no longer valid, or basing decisions on values that you outgrew years ago. Second and more significant involves distinguishing your emotional trip from that of the people around you. Nobody would call you a conformist, but you’re often under pressure to ‘feel the way you’re supposed to feel’ rather than the way you actually feel; which is to say, be scared of what everyone else is scared of. This is your challenge in group situations: this pressure leads you to feel like you’re trapped, yet if you express how you actually feel, you’ll be excommunicated. Here you have a great place to start when it comes to understanding your family’s influence on you. On one level things seemed friendly and open, but you lived with a measure of tyranny that you’re just beginning to understand. What you learn about yourself over the next few weeks will take you a long way toward freedom. You are growing toward the understanding that what was previously defined as rebellion is not rebellion at all; it is simply being yourself. And this will change your life.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
Lately I’ve had so much to write that I’ve adopted a strategy of exploring my local region, working in as many towns and cafes as I can. This keeps me in slightly unfamiliar territory, constantly needing to notice, adapt, find the best place to work, and meet new people. This month’s positively incredible astrology involves your ruling planet Jupiter, and it takes place in your 3rd solar house — Aquarius. This is the house of your local environment. In the current version of the world that means anywhere within one hour’s driving distance. Have you ever had that experience of noticing some really interesting detail right outside your door, even though you’ve walked past it a thousand times? That’s the effect that is being multiplied radically in your local environment. Therefore, get outside. Get to as many group events as you can. Meet your neighbors and take your time listening to them. Notice what you notice; write and take pictures — both. Yes, I am assuming you have some concept you’re developing, some invention or some idea for how to improve the world. True, this does not include everyone, but it includes you. The key is to think not only larger but differently than you thought yesterday. Constant change needs to become your new comfort zone. Not (if you will notice) the mental rut the world seems so thrilled to be caught in.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
If you’re feeling slammed to the max, too busy to eat or too restless to sleep, you’re missing out on the best of the astrology that is shaping the world — and which is based on events involving your sign. This is not a “busy time” in your life — it’s one of the major turning points. I can say this with no knowledge of your natal astrology; it plays second fiddle to such a potent force as Saturn square Pluto. If you have a struggle, it’s being clear about your values. As my old friend Arthur Joseph Kushner used to say, you’re doing “some of the right thing.” The question is: are you reaching deep enough into your core and bringing out your deepest goals? You need to get yourself unbusy enough, and your mind loose enough, and out of crisis mode, to see the larger landscape of why you’re doing what you’re doing. The planets are offering clarity, but it’s of little worth unless you pause and are receptive. Deeply inlaid patterns are involved, and all of your astrology is focus ed on rewriting those patterns: in getting you out of automatic mode. We tend to use auto-mode as a defense against the packed quality of our lives, but actually it’s the most efficient way to waste your life, or to evade the risks involved in living from the heart.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
Jupiter is making big moves in your sign this month, and this means long-delayed opportunities coming to fruition. Back in April, I was talking about taking your ideas to the bank. I was also talking about how you probably filled two notebooks with ideas about your own life. Now, the cosmos is responding with clear points of contact. The first is Jupiter conjunct Chiron in your sign; followed by Jupiter conjunct Neptune in your sign. The first of these is about focusing your intentions, your abilities and your understanding, in one gesture. The keyword is alchemy. Consider this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If you feel yourself balking because you’re afraid, admit that to yourself, and then see if you can get to the root of the fear. That may be the principal benefit of the aspect. Second, the meeting with Neptune will make what is difficult seem easy; that is, you may have the sense of your commitment flowing through you. This does not happen every day; you are accustome d to far more in the way of mental resistance and rigidity. You may be inclined to relax and enjoy the moment of not feeling trapped in your mental patterns, but this is not designed as a vacation; it’s designed as a moment of sufficient freedom and compassion for yourself to be able to get out of your own way.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)
“I went to a therapist once, because everything I think, it comes true. I can’t explain to you the feeling.” So says the Pisces waitress at the Greek diner where I’m writing this horoscope. Now, to turn this around from the passive role to the active one: rather than information coming to you, consciously envision what you want. Or as a surfer once said to me, “Look where you want to be.” The idea of a conscious visioning process sounds nice, but it has two liabilities. One, we don’t necessarily know the implications of what we’re trying to manifest, and therefore it’s better to make sure that it’s directly within one’s deepest values. Second, it takes you out of the passive/victim role and puts you into the role of co-creator of your life. This is not as appealing as it sounds. The reason most peoples’ lives are in the condition they are in is a direct result of resistance to take up any real measure of responsibility for what they create. This is in part a function of lack of awareness; if this is intentional or convenient, it’s called ignorance. As the Sun and Venus cross the powerful, energetic midheaven of your solar chart, it is essential that you take responsibility for awareness, and for making your decisions based on what you know. You have room for error — but not to pretend that your choices don’t matter.

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.

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.