Through the end of the week, the Sun is making its way across the last degrees of Scorpio and will enter Sagittarius at 11:22:34 pm EST on Saturday, Nov. 21. When the Sun is at the end of a sign and not making any new aspects to major planets before entering the new sign, that is called Sun void of course. We are familiar with the Moon being void of course, which has the same basic definition. They have different feelings; among them is habit: the Moon void happens twice a week while the Sun void takes place 12 times a year. Usually it lasts a day or two; at several days, this is a long one.

The Sun void comes with the feeling of unusual things happening. It’s like an opening into the unlikely, which can be friendly if you get to take advantage of what seems like an odd chance; or it can be less than friendly if you’re not paying attention and something untoward happens to you. This is the time to make luck work for you rather than to push your luck; to see the moments that invite you to ease in. With Scorpio, this can be an opportunity to balance out the emotional or erotic economy.

As the Sun is making its transition into Sagittarius, there is a conjunction of Venus and Ceres (in a pattern where it’s annual for a few years, then skips a few years). I have been suggesting that Venus + Ceres + Scorpio is about understanding our mother’s sexual baggage. True, we don’t like to think of our mother as sexual, but to the extent you want to be sexually free, this is something I strongly suggest. Mother has secrets. We don’t know them. She had to maintain her image; she may not have wanted to share her pain; she may be too self-conscious or modest to let on what is really bothering her. The problem with this is that this becomes miasmic: multigenerational material that causes the next generation pain it does not understand.

Seek and you shall find; find and you shall facilitate your emotional healing process.

Yours & truly,

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.

While this is happening, beware of an aspect developing in the background (and which has been cooking all year), which is the conjunction of Chiron and Neptune in Aquarius. If you want to know what this is about, make a list of the ways that our society lives on denial. Do you really want to know where your hamburger comes from? Are you sure you want to know what’s in your flu vaccine? Are you really happy with how your friends or partner treats you? Everything developing in the planets right now favors awakening from denial and seeing your life for what it is. After careful assessment, you may even decide it was better than you thought. And you will undoubtedly see where there is room for improvement.

Closer on the horizon is the Scorpio New Moon, which is exact Monday at 7:14 pm. We’ve heard many times how the veil between the worlds is thinnest when the Sun is in Scorpio; this is the peak of that energy, when the veils that separate us from the truth will fall away, at least for a moment.

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.

A setup involving the Sun, Mercury and a small, meaningful planet called Nessus suggest we need to be careful not to inflict our parents’ judgments onto ourselves. There’s also a reminder not to make small matters into big ones; that is, to focus on what is truly meaningful rather than what is trivial or gossipy.

It’s also a reminder that our words, once spoken, leave our lips and we can no longer control them. Therefore, be gentle in your speech, no matter now right you may feel. Understate your case. People will trust you more if you do. Mercury square Nessus also says, own your stuff; take responsibility for your pain; don’t put it on others. Once you do that, you may find that the people close to you are eminently willing to be supportive in ways you hadn’t imagined possible.

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.

Since I am not a psychologist, my presentation is co-sponsored by one: Dr. Christine Farber, a longtime Planet Waves reader; as well as my astrology student from the Omega Institute and a one-time client. She caught onto my work with Book of Blue and proposed that the themes I am covering in that project were ready to be introduced to mainstream psychology. She crafted a presentation using language from my articles, which was accepted by the APA women’s psychology section as a seminar.

Book of Blue is an indirect outgrowth of my work as an astrologer, though expressed in photographs and intimate essays. As an astrologer, I have written and worked primarily with and for women, and in the process have explored my perceptions of women, studied the paths of their lives and done my best to understand their choices and values. I have always been conscious that part of why I am doing this work is to heal my relationship with my mother and with all women; and part of it is to be of service to women in response to a lifelong calling.

You might say that I am a woman-identified man. Given the choice of who is more ‘my kind’ of person, as in who I feel more like, I certainly feel like I have far more in common with most women than with most men. Yet in much the same way that relationships among women are fragmented by mistrust and competition, I noticed something similar in my own relationships that I set about working to resolve. The healing process largely facilitated by my work on Book of Blue has involved repairing a sense of alienation and isolation that has gradually given way to an atmosphere of communication and contact.

The [usually] fun part is I also get to be a man, and experience and witness the intensity and subtlety of female beauty, that is, intellectual, emotional and physical beauty, from the viewpoint of being male. Along the way, my inner feminine gets to make friends with other women and learn how to be female; and my inner man gets to polarize into his masculinity and explore our contrasts and how they feel. Along the way, I am working out a relationship with myself.

Conscious of holding this space as mental preparation, I am able to create a space for my photographic subjects to see and feel themselves; to be a witness to their own self-aware femininity and humanity. Women spend a lot of time in mirrors, but I wonder how much of it is really about witnessing themselves. In my studio, that is precisely what they are invited to do: as a means of seeing their own beauty, integrating their sense of identity, processing guilt and body issues, and making peace with their judgments about themselves.

In Search of Venus

In astrology we work with inner archetypes all the time; they are the lead characters in the astrological drama. For example, everyone has Mars and Venus working in their chart; we all possess the same inner masculine and feminine aspects. Where these things are placed, and how we relate to them, are important factors that help shape our personality and affect how we adapt to life in our skins and in society. We know there is plenty of gender tension around us, and we feel it in our relationships; there are also gender relationships within us, which shape our consciousness, perceptions and experiences.

Usually we project that tension outward, rejecting the opposite gender internally and seeing her as a phenomenon in the outer world; without remembering anything about her origins in consciousness.

In terms of the inner feminine, I am talking primarily about Venus, though she takes a number of other forms: for example the Moon (who often represents a child or the child self as well); certain of the more potent asteroids (Psyche, Juno or Vesta, for example); and an important new discovery, Eris (the castaway woman). Yet even when we do astrology, to what extent do we experience and explore these things as having actual life rather than symbolic existence?

Were I to write an astrology book, it might be called something like Astrology in Real Life, revealing how we can use the chart as a map to a quest rather than as a purely mental construction. My inner woman is described in my chart as Venus in Taurus in the 11th house, conjunct the asteroid Photographica. She is trine a planet curiously like Venus, which is Uranus/Prometheus (few other astrologers would say this, however). I’ll go through these one at a time. Venus is a complex archetype, and like many planets, her energy is colored by her sign placement, expressed through her house placement and elaborated in her aspects.

Venus in Taurus is an interesting mix of flirtatious and deeply committed. She is profoundly feminine; sensuous and biophilic. She is womanly in what you might call the true sense. She has a belly and hips and breasts. She feels her fertility and her creative richness; she is conscious of her sexual aches, cravings and desire for contact. She loves and is bonded to herself. Venus in Taurus is an exquisite image of female selflove and self-pleasuring. At her best, she is truly self-possessed and thus can afford to share herself. True to Taurus, she has respect for tradition but is also a rebel. Most of all, she is guided by one thing: her authentic values, which are the basis of every decision she makes.

She loves both sex and sensuality. She is bisexual and her attraction to women is related to her connection to herself and to the common bond that all women share as those who provide comfort and give life. Is she monogamous? She’s bisexual; in theory and in practice, no. But devotion and loyalty are supreme to her.

In the 11th house, she is publicly visible and known; she offers herself as available to the community; she is someone respected for her integrity. The 11th is the most idealistic house and she believes in her hopes and dreams: they are there to be made real, and to be shared with others. Taurus in the 11th is a practical dreamer. Venus in this house not only believes in true love, she feels it as real within herself. She is possessive (a Taurus trait) but recognizes that when you are solid with yourself you can be there for others. Her desire to participate is an invitation to share (an 11th house trait).

Taurus is about deep bonding and the 11th is about friendship. There are paradoxes and there are points of harmony between these two layers, and this is one image of the new relationship (and erotic relating) model I am working out with women. I write about this extensively in the diary section of the Book of Blue.

Then we have an asteroid in conjunction, adding a special theme: photography. Martha Lang Wescott says of this asteroid, “While useful for showing the importance of photography and visual images, Photographica also relates to the brain’s ability to retain and interpret visual imagery.” I would add that it likely involves the ability to use visual imagery as a communication medium.

In using my camera, I explore, create and relate, and using my studio I create the space for others to do the same thing. The photographs then become a point of meditation for the subject, who can use them to explore her mental and emotional states, and make peace with her way of seeing herself. Finally they become public art that can extend the healing process beyond the studio, and the individuals involved, and into the world.

Book of Blue is about the use of visual imagery to heal the self-image of women, in the eyes of both men and women. We all agree that we are overwhelmed with idealized, reconstructed images of young women, and these cause disturbances in our ability to perceive women for who they are. More often than not, the personhood of women is robbed by false images and ideas about womanhood.

Venus trine Uranus is about creating an innovation that gets around this trap. It is about harmonizing beauty with technology (Uranus in Virgo), which is specifically a technology for healing; and an idea base (3rd house Uranus) that also comes in written form.

The Mirror of Denial, and the Mirror

In an article I wrote last year called “Pornography as the Mirror of Denial,” I explored the idea that in using pornography, heterosexual men are holding a mirror to themselves into which they see a woman reflected. This woman, in my view, is designed to be an image of their inner feminine or anima. She becomes an image of his inner woman, who for whatever reasons allows him to make contact with himself through a feminine filter; which in turn facilitates letting go emotionally.

The problem — the point of denial — is that the women depicted in these images are not present; they do not respond; they are not available to talk to, share with, cry with, and to actually experience sex with. Therefore, each time someone lets go meditating on that image, this feeling of denial and unavailability is reinforced.

I would like to explore this theory a bit, however I want to define pornography first. To my knowledge there is no agreed-upon artistic, legal or moral definition of pornography. Nearly any image can be accused of it, which is dangerous. Therefore I define pornography as the use of an image rather than something inherent in the image itself; this includes the image-maker’s supposed intent. The picture might be intended to sell lingerie or a DVD, it might be from a Coke ad, it might be a street photo, it might be a classical image or it might be a page from Playboy. If the image is used by someone for erotic gratification in some way, that’s what gives it the distinction of pornography. “I know it when I see it” is in the eye of the beholder.

This being said, I think that the relationship between the image and the viewer is far more complex than nearly anyone gives it credit for being. When we look at pornography and find it mentally stimulating, one possible reason is because we identify with the subject of the image.

We could consider this a form of projection, that is, putting an internal idea or self-concept onto something in the outside world; but I think it’s just as much about introjection: taking in something we see outside ourselves and allowing it to become part of us, or wishing it were; or seeking to identify some part of ourselves through the image.

In my article, I suggested that men experiment with setting pornography aside, and use a mirror instead. This way they would look for that inner woman in their own reflection, and make friends with her within themselves.

We can go over the many reasons why this would be considered taboo: for example, many would think that it’s gay. After all it’s a man relating erotically to a man. If he’s looking for someone feminine in that image to connect with, it’s even more gay; he’s seeing himself as a woman, and potentially loving himself as one. Or it could be considered narcissistic; even the fear of being known for that would be enough to stop many people. In the end, exploring with a mirror is psychologically daring, but it can subvert the ego as well. Witnessing yourself in such an out-there state is brave and a potentially uncomfortable confrontation.

Autogynephilia and Gender Dysphoria

The idea of a man loving himself as a woman has been described as a form of pathology in the psychological literature, part of a trend of categorizing an increasing number of erotic feelings as forms of mental illnesses, commonly known as gender dysphorias. After a long struggle to have homosexuality removed from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), there is now a movement to bring in many other similar feelings and experiences.

The clinical term for a man loving himself as a woman is autogynephilia. It was coined in 1989 by Ray Blanchard to refer to “a man’s paraphilic tendency to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself as a woman.” It has been used as a means of explaining the feelings underlying being a transvestite, among other things. The term paraphilic basically means a kind of fetish that you need in order to get off. However, I don’t think it’s a paraphilia. Blanchard himself has said that “an autogynephile does not necessarily become sexually aroused every time he pictures himself as female or engages in feminine behavior, any more than a heterosexual man automatically gets an erection whenever he sees an attractive woman. Thus, the concept of autogynephilia…refers to a potential for sexual excitation” [emphasis in original].

Everyone has this potential, obviously. So like much of psychology he is describing something that everyone feels at some time in pathological terms. Astrology is much more compassionate here; any astrologer will tell you that we all have Venus and Mars and identify with both to varying degrees. It would help if more psychologists studied astrology.

In a 1992 paper, Blanchard and his colleagues wrote that, “autogynephilia may be conceived as a kind of misdirected heterosexuality…autogynephilia competes with normal heterosexual attraction.” Thus, according to this theory, if you use pornography depicting a female for sexual purposes, you are healthy; if you use a mirror and seek the vision of your inner feminine there, you could be diagnosed. The implication is that it’s not ‘normal’ for a man to be too woman-identified.

Yet I would propose that this happens to some degree every time a man is sexually aroused by a woman. He may not be consciously saying, “I am her,” or “I want to be her,” but I would propose that the feeling is pervasive. Many, many heterosexual men are fascinated by women to the point of envy. We assume this about gay men; but when you look at it closely there is nothing more gay than heterosexuality. (I will save my theory of why heterosexuals need to come out of the closet for another day.)

This can be a source of incredible pleasure; yet I think that if left unexpressed, or if this clashes with other values and it results in shame, the results can be painful. Hence, it’s usually easier to project the whole phenomenon of the feminine outside oneself, onto women. It is easier, socially and psychologically, for men to disown their inner feminine aspect. And sadly, we see the results of this casting-off all the time. Many men view women as a kind of alien species. I am sure that most of them are not actually comfortable with women’s experiences, feelings, or bodies, despite being obsessed with them.

As a result, many women view themselves as aliens, despite being obsessed with themselves. In creating my portrait series, I chose to explore female self-awareness in part as a way of claiming it within myself. I was curious what it felt like to inhabit female beauty; to see oneself as female; and to be female and also see oneself as human.

Gaze of the Inner Goddess

What about women, seeking their reflection in the world? They don’t need to seek out pornography; women are told constantly how they are supposed to look and feel about themselves; they are constantly made to feel they must compare themselves to others. The entire world is holding up a mirror to women, and it is usually pretty harsh. It is impossible to live up to what we see, and this is a source of almost constant agony for many women caught in this ego-based hall of mirrors.

As a result, many women pay closer attention to other women than do men: down to the details, and viciously judgmental in ways that most men would never imagine. This is often in the spirit of competition, though I would not call it healthy competition. I have also learned through both photography and astrology that most women are profoundly judgmental of themselves, which they project onto other women, and express by being servile to men. In the words of my friend and collaborator Neisha Hirsch, “She wants what she wants, and she feels bad about it because we are all so programmed to please others instead of ourselves.”

The idea of a Book of Blue portrait session is that the model focuses on herself, while I hold space and document the experience. The model may be dressed or nude; nudity tends to enhance the feeling of vulnerability, yet in reality is simply more basically human. Excellent images have come from sessions with the model dressed but I have not analyzed what feels different about them. I’ve also learned that nude modeling is something that many women contemplate and consider; in reality, a great many explore the territory. Sometimes it’s about money and sometimes it’s about fun and liberation. Sometimes it’s for the pleasure of being seen.

I am aware that my presence influences the images, but it also makes them possible. My maleness is a specific factor; much of what women must contend with is the feeling of being looked at by other men, and now I’m there looking at them up close. We are exploring the space and the feeling of being seen.

This is a fine line to walk. I will work at different emotional temperatures and proximity depending on my relationship to the subject of the photo. In all, I believe that my presence “takes over” the aspect of the woman who is concerned about being seen, and allows me to do that part. The inner spectator is going to be in her mind anyway. Hakomi Therapy discovered that these inner roles could be occupied by someone external, thus liberating the person from having to do it themselves. I see my part as replacing the critical witness with a loving witness. This presents the opportunity to be seen by someone who is open, accepting and moreover not afraid of their self-judgments, which as I have learned, from much experience, can be quite painful.

I am willing to go as far with my photo subjects as they want, and have journeyed in this process through a diversity of states from grief to erotic self-exploration to dissociative experiences and many levels of what might be called ‘ordinary consciousness’. More than a decade of experience as an astrologer, holding space for emotional and spiritual process, helps support this space and the process that unfolds here. (The aspect in my chart is the Moon conjunct Vesta in the 8th house.)

One potential result is that a woman will encounter her inner goddess, that is, her essential inner woman, through the experience of making the images, and seeing them afterwards. Some of the images are published, with the consent of the photo subject, and there have been some interesting dialogs between viewers and the subjects of the photos.

Is it Art, or is it Therapy?

We are standing here at the threshold where art functions as a healing modality. When art is working this is often the case, though this particular process makes it more personal than usual. I never set out to create a therapeutic model — only to make images and learn something about myself and the people involved. What I quickly learned was that the model was working out something in her relationship to herself; I was working out something in relationship to her; and I was meeting my inner feminine in many different forms. As she would feel her vulnerability, I would learn to empathize with her. As she would feel her sexual power, I would feel it as well. As she would witness her beauty as being something untouchable, I would feel this too.

I discovered that I was working right in the space where her self-image is created. So in a sense the resulting photographs are documents of a new self-image in the process of being developed, discovered or witnessed. It is fascinating to see, in models I have worked with over a long period of time, the ways in which facial features, the expression in her eyes and her presence with herself evolve over time. They are also documents of me exploring my own self-image as a woman; and a long process of aligning with the experience of women being in harmony with themselves. In my view this is correcting the experience of generations of women before me being conditioned to be in conflict with themselves; to disapprove of themselves; to be someone other than who they are.

My sense is that whatever else is happening, I am getting photographs of the real woman, not a projected vision of her. This would be the process of someone discovering her inner goddess. To do that, of course, I have had to know and love my own inner goddess; she in truth is the one who stands guard over the photo sessions and the resulting images, holding space for the process to unfold, and gradually teaching me to see women for who they are and not who I would have them be. I trust that my photo subjects are learning to do the same thing for themselves.

Yours & truly,

Eric Francis

Additional research: Pia Ruisi-Besares. Dedicated with love and gratitude to Betty Dodson.

All photos by Eric Francis Book of Blue sessions. Descriptions in consecutive order:
Ange from the Book of Blue sessions in Paris.
Anya from the Book of Blue sessions in Toronto.
Chenoa from the London sessions of Book of Blue.
Natasha from the Brussels sessions of Book of Blue.
Hayley from the Portland, Maine sessions of Book of Blue.
Christine from the Toronto sessions of Book of Blue.
Sue Story from the Kingston, NY sessions.

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.

As we have reported previously, this is the third in a sequence of three eclipses. This one takes place in Aquarius, conjunct a centaur named Nessus. This is the third centaur; the first planet ever named by astronomers at the suggestion of astrologers; and an energy that we all must work with on a day-to-day basis in our relationships and our attempts at relationship. As I go through the process of writing, corresponding and teaching on the topic of this eclipse, I am gradually working out a new interpretation of Nessus. One thing I can say, at least, is that this point addresses some of our deepest vulnerabilities.

We don’t need to look too far to see that we live in a world where it is possible and indeed likely that we will be collecting injuries, violations of trust and various traumas as we proceed through life. And if we look carefully we will also see that we live in a world where healing is indeed possible; and if we agree to that possibility, it verges on inevitable. The pace of experience is quickening and these opportunities may be coming in at an unusually rapid pace, and/or old traumas may be coming up to be addressed faster than we are accustomed to. Given that a fair number of people don’t actually deal with the material, how much is coming up may be presenting some significant challenges.

Therefore, we need to consciously, humbly bring healing process into our relationships. We need to learn to communicate about things that are relevant to us, to our partners and the situation, not just at the end of a relationship, but at the beginning and in the middle. We need to listen and take what we hear under advisement, setting aside the control agenda.

To put it politely, this is potentially inconvenient, it takes time and not so many people think it’s any kind of fun. In order to have any sense of safety in the current psychic environment, we need at least to be able to trust that we can communicate honestly about what counts; and be heard.

We have been going through the process of these eclipses for well over a month; in fact I would say that the June 22 New Moon conjunct Vesta, on the solstice (therefore, involving the Aries Point), was something of the opening bell. I think there is a pandemic of emotional exhaustion going around; we deserve to claim that. Meanwhile, the presence of Vesta in that potent New Moon suggests that we are being called upon to come out of our own limited, personally-driven reality boxes and offer ourselves in service to others as we move through our own healing.

Many factors point to a collective healing process underway, involving profoundly deep issues of trust, individuality and sacrifice. We find it nearly impossible to trust one another. We struggle to express our individuality, at the expense of being cast out of our tribe or relationship. And we are obsessed with the idea of sacrifice, which creates a state of paralysis around some of the most basic experiences of giving and receiving.

There will come a day when we are each available to admit our vulnerabilities and our needs without the fear of terrifying others. That day will come sooner as we begin to embrace that we all are working through similar injuries, though in slightly different patterns. We currently live under a system of tyranny by fantasy: the notion of getting real is still a vast taboo, one that is upheld by our culture of expectation and distraction.

In the midst of this, the process of awakening is compounded by the many admissions we must make to ourselves; and by the incredible pressure we are under to stay asleep. In actual fact we typically delay some of our most important growth until the last hour of life, which is another way of saying that we are conditioned to live like we’re going to live forever; but without actually embracing that which makes life worth the experience.

This eclipse is informing us that if we want to be close, the only way to do that is by being vulnerable. That, in turn, requires both experimenting with and building trust, which I would propose is the basis of all functional relationships. This in turn requires being willing to be hurt as a result; not desiring to be so, but recognizing that it’s one of the risks of vulnerability.

Vesta’s presence in the solstice New Moon is reminding us that we must all hold emotional space for us all. We need to practice patience with one another, and we need to check in with how the other is feeling, doing and experiencing existence. I offer a special reminder to men: as women develop their power of will, you will need to respond to that seemingly unusual thing with equanimity. I would remind women that as men develop their emotional capacity, you need to open up, listen and bring empathy to the situation.

This is no time for anyone to be proud, haughty or to withhold the most basic compassion.
Indeed, compassion is what we all need, and it will grow exponentially as we offer it to one another.

Lately I have been corresponding with someone in Wales named Sari. She has provided me with a series of interpretations of this eclipse, one of which I would like to share with you here. Before I leave you with her wise, compassionate words, I want to remind you that we are indeed building to a Full Moon that is exact at 8:54:52 pm EDT on Weds., Aug. 5 / 1:54 am British Summer Time on Thursday morning, Aug. 6. Readers in other zones, please calculate off of London time.

This eclipse building is likely to come with exceptional tension, and if it’s not handled carefully the results can indeed damage our relationships. Therefore, we need to both be careful and especially forgiving, and ride gently through this energetic shift.

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.

This horoscope is an extended edition, interpreting the sign change of Venus from Gemini to Cancer, and the eclipse of the Moon conjunct the centaur Nessus.

Aries (March 20-April 19)
There are indeed two ways to look at the world. Of course there are usually many more, but two is a good start; it’s better than being stuck in one, particularly if that one relates mostly from the place of fear, guilt or contention within yourself. The questions you face now go something like this: what is influencing you to be biased one way or the other? What motivation do you have to take over your power of choice? And finally: what preconceived ideas about yourself, going back as far as you can trace the history of your life being influenced at all, are directing your decisions today? I understand that you may feel way behind a partner in this process of raising your awareness to the level of what really matters. Yet there are social forces that are currently vying not only for your attention but your devotion. These, I suggest you scrutinize carefully.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
When you go through a process of spiritual growth, it can take the ‘ego mind’ some time to catch up with the progress of your soul. The seeming coexistence in a double paradigm can be difficult. There’s also no guarantee that any one person will succeed in experiencing unified consciousness; not in this world, where we always have another seemingly good reason to retreat to the past. Yet you are moving forward, in the face of so many factors that are seemingly so much larger than yourself. In a little while, the dilemmas that seem so important today will vanish into the depths of your true calling. I would go so far as to describe this as an evolutionary movement for your whole being; not your existence as it seems to be in fragments, or dissociated parts. You are not one who thrives on confrontation. But ultimately we must each confront the fact of our own existence and what it means. As Venus changes signs to Cancer and forms an opposition to Pluto, you may experience something rather like this.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
You may not be getting a clear signal about what is available, who is available, what is expected from you or what environment you are in. The movement of Mercury over the next few days suggests that you’re likely willing to do anything to have that sense of acknowledgement. I would propose, however, that you would be wise to look in your own direction for this information. I suggest you reduce your plans to reaching for the one truly specific thing that you need. This will obviously conflict with your tendency to always want to keep your options open; to not be tied down. This tendency has power, I suggest you ask where it comes from. Obviously you want to participate in a direct way. That participation requires commitment. Yet true commitment is never to an external factor; it is based on movement from within, and generally, once we make a commitment we know because our body, our feelings and our choices begin to move in that direction without our actually having to make a choice. You can trust this.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
You have come a long way in facing your fears during the past few weeks. There is a feeling of freedom in that, yet you have not seen the best of the results yet. These results will come even as you continue to struggle with some unknown factor that has seemed to be the source of so much in the way of disturbance in your life recently. I suggest you give up the struggle and reach only for awareness. Fear has a way of lurking on what are sometimes called ‘unconscious’ levels of the mind. It hides, and influences us by stealth. There is only one remedy: to love openly, freely, generously, and in the face of whatever may appear to threaten love. Remember that love is not threatened; rather, every other value quakes in the presence of this most beautiful human force for healing and embrace. For a while, you may find yourself with no choice but to love in the face of fear. And your love will become all the deeper and stronger for rising to the occasion.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
You may be viewing the future with a sense of apprehension. Recent events may have you feeling like it’s difficult to plant both of your feet on solid ground. Yet the only solid ground in the universe is your own integrity. That is the filter that influences the rest of your reality, and the more aware of this fact you are, the more true-to-course your life will feel. This, even in the face of others who are uncertain, who are slipping backwards, and who choose to let their sense of identity be dictated by factors outside their control. You are in the process of figuring out that you are indeed different than the world you perceive. That can be quite an uncomfortable state of existence, but then it is the ultimate expression of individuality to be who you are despite what the world is. Then, as I am sure you have learned at certain points in the past, there comes a reconciliation process. Here is a clue. You will know you are making a contribution when you are able to give and feel that you are losing nothing.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
The Hermit is the tarot card associated with your sign, and you may indeed be able to relate these days. The Hermit is a trump among trumps; one of the most exalted states of humanity: a stage of evolution where we have risen above dualism and from that space of unity within ourselves, we are able to hold up the light for others to follow. That inner sense of unity is the key, and yes, you may at times still struggle to hold the space. Yet that is part of the process, and part of what is witnessed. You don’t need to be perfect, but rather embracing your role and the journey you are on. The truth is you are not as alone as you may think; certainly not to the extent that you may feel. Yes, you exist in a different reality than many people you know. You have more information, and certain doubts run much deeper. It is difficult at times for you to make contact with others. Yet as you radiate and express who you are, you may discover they are more eager to make contact with you.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
I suggest that you remember this stretch of your personal history carefully. Once this distinct phase passes, you may have a tendency to forget some of the territory you crossed, and how meaningful it truly is. You can remember as a kind of yoga; leave yourself notes; collect artifacts and stay in contact with the people who you discovered were influencing you, because they have more to share. Most of all, remember the transitions you experience and the commitments that you make. The story of this time in your life is that of your passion awakening. You are gaining trust in yourself and your gifts. I would emphasize your potential to embrace one gentle truth: your talents are collective property. They have limited value outside the scope of their influence on others. In other words, your greatest satisfaction and contact with your potential will come from witnessing the influence you have on the world around you, rather than from merely ‘doing your thing’.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
I am sure you wish the negotiation process would finally end; it would be easier indeed if more of the people around you were more negotiable, and for that matter more committed to their own cause. This, I think you will discover is true as the next few days unfold. Here is the challenge: seeing things as they are, not as you are. You may struggle to emphasize the positive, or perhaps more accurately, to see what appears to be negative in its true context. Someone close to you is leading you gently toward a place of faith. You have the ability to stay where you’ve felt stuck; or to shift your consciousness to a new kind of awareness. Take note: they are leading you emotionally, toward a feeling-tone where you will be able to stabilize your consciousness on what I can only describe as love: the real thing, connected to something much larger than yourself. This is directly an expression of your potential. As you taste this, you will still be aware of some sharp contrasts within you and around you. But you will have a new basis for judging what is possible.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
Make sure you notice when people treat you compassionately. Decide consciously whether you want to pull away, or welcome their offerings. Given your nature, you may feel that to acknowledge their kindness and commitment will imply commitment on your part. I believe this is true, and I believe it’s a reason why so many people insist on being so remote and aloof from the people around them, yet all the time begging for attention of the kind that they don’t really need. To put it mildly, you have tendencies that isolate you from the deeper levels of human contact that you seek; and now you have opportunities to experience both that closeness and also to step beyond your fears. Attachment is not an option in this world; how we choose to express that attachment is. Sharing is not an option; what we choose to give and receive is. Over the next few days and well beyond, you will experience a series of opportunities to breathe in the exchange of love, of passion and of nourishment. These things take nothing from you. Each time you recognize this will take you one step closer to authentic fulfillment.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
A moment ago I stepped out for a break halfway through writing this column, and visited the deli next to my apartment. I had been away for several weeks. The owner, Mrs. B., a Capricorn, pulled me aside the moment she saw me to describe a complex dream that she had awakened from that morning, in tears. It took place on the dangerous Afghani/Pakistani border. Of the many scenes she described, three stand out: in one, she rose above her fears and flew away from a threatening situation. In another, a man died and she revived him using mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, literally breathing life into him. In the last scene, someone informed her that the Muslim prayer, “Laila, illallah Muhammad rasul Allah!” would be rewritten to include her name: “…illallah Najibah rasul Allah!” In other words, in her dream, she was being named as the messenger of Allah. But what could this mean? A woman? We all know this is one definition of blasphemy, Islamic-styled. I gave her my interpretation: it’s about the awakening of the Divine Feminine, within her and in the world. In our era, we have very few precedents for this, and the prospect is indeed frightening to many. I suggest you embrace Her dearly.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
This is a profound phase of reassessment for you. You are making sweeping discoveries about yourself, and specific ones, that are changing the way you perceive both yourself and the world around you. Perhaps I don’t need to say this, but I will say it anyway, which is that this is a process and you are a work in progress. Many things that will happen have yet to occur; there is plenty that you have to reveal to yourself, and to others. We tend to want things cut and dried; made for TV, and indeed, most of our ideas about life are false concepts that are induced by scriptwriters. Yet life is not scripted, and there is no actual reason we would want it to be — except of course for the convenience of not having to be authentic in the moment. Therefore, you can afford to leave your scripts behind. You can afford to admit your fears. You can afford to look at the reasons why you possess the deep vulnerabilities that you do. Most of all, I suggest that you enlist the people in your life to be your partners in healing your fears and pains. You can take solace in the fact that we all share the same basic insecurities and we all face a common destiny. The ground of life is more level than it may seem.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
Yes, so much remains unknown and unresolved. While this is often the case on our planet, there have been few times in your life when so much seemed possible, and when so much seemed at stake. The two must necessarily come together. You have been spending quite a bit of time confronting the mysteries of existence, and embracing situations in which you are not powerless but wherein your power must emerge from a different place than you are normally accustomed to seeking it. I would suggest that your strength now exists in embracing situations that seem contradictory. Some of these are accented by the fact of so much seemingly missing information. Remember that most of what we know we know through interpretation. I would suggest that you take this up consciously, and remember that you are indeed interpreting; it would help immensely to be aware what you know, what you suspect and what you don’t know, as you go through that process. It’s vital to know the difference; it is vital to identify missing information so that when it shows up you know what you’ve got. Some of this will be about others. Most of it will be about you.

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.

I recognize that people are trying to do this all the time, usually on New Year’s Eve or their birthday. However, we persist in doing something that mocks living in the past. It’s not possible to actually live in the past but it is possible to be preoccupied with the concept. The feeling of existing in the present is so different than being caught in mental constructs of history as to be a little stunning; perhaps destabilizing. But it is different; with the main distinction being that the world of potential seems so much more open.

Today is a day where it would make sense to look at your life and decide what you want to move on from. Based on the possibilities you see in the world, some of which may have just presented themselves to you recently, it is a day when you can take a step toward what you want to move on to: what circumstances, ideas, people, places and modes of self-expression you want to embrace.

The biggest secret in the universe is not that it’s your life; it’s where to find the tools to make it so. Really there is only one: the power of decision. Every small move means a lot.

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)
What is a man? It depends on who you ask. I would ask you: is a man who you make him, or is he who he is? The answer, so far as I can tell, is somewhere in between: a man who is who he is, but who he becomes depends considerably on who you allow him to be. Today’s total solar eclipse falls on the brink of your 5th house, which is the line where we take risks, including sexual risks. Here, we see the drama to integrate (or reject) feminine energy in the form of the Sun and the Moon in Cancer. Are you willing to allow the men in your life to embrace an introspective, emotionally grounded orientation? Would you recognize someone who did so as a man? Or would he be a eunuch? Remember, we live in a society where if a man wears a coordinated outfit, many would presume he’s gay. This is a difficult place to start.

Taurus (April 19- May 20)
Remember that you’re being driven at the moment by an apparent split in your values system. Values are how we guide our lives. Relationships, as well, are based on shared values and a mutual exchange, but it’s difficult to define a shared value and therefore to commence an exchange if you’re struggling to prioritize what’s important to you. But you can do something: you can commit to finding out. You can commit to relationships that are devoted to learning. As a starting point, it would help if you make peace with the notion that learning is a process of change; communicating is a process of change; understanding yourself consciously is a process of change. You will not fall off the edge; to the contrary, once you take a chance and step out of your emotional mire, you will discover that you’re standing on solid ground and in clear light.

Gemini (May 20- June 21)
There are so many possibilities; so many of them feel wrong. A few of them feel right. When you engage your desire, one of two things seems to happen: you get caught in a guilt trip, or what you want changes. I would propose that what you feel guilty about is what you really want. What you think you cannot have is what you really want. What you are more likely to reject as inappropriate is what you really want. You might ask how you would ever get out of this conflict, the question takes on different meaning when you remember that the conflict serves a purpose. For one thing, it’s a substitute for depth. For another, it stands in the way of getting anywhere on this issue of desire. And think of it: using this method, you don’t actually have to deal with an experience of fulfillment. Ask yourself if there’s a better way.

Cancer (June 21- July 22)
Imagine that you finally have all the power. You have total control. You can do anything to anyone that you want; make their decisions, including their decisions about how they feel, so that for as long as you’re subject to what someone feels, you can decide what that will be. Are you having fun yet? I didn’t think so. Part of the adventure of life is experiencing and adapting to what other people want. Control is toxic in large doses, and it’s toxic in small ones, too. Self-control works, up to a point, but that too quickly turns to a fear-contaminated drama. This thing we want, we can only have when we create it together. You seem to be reaching, at times dearly, for something that you already are inside, but which makes you extremely nervous when you encounter it on the outside, as another person, with their own perceptions, desires, needs and volition. You can come a long way right now by embracing what you perceive as your opposite.

Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
In the process of any transformation, there is that moment where we lose control and surrender to the process. This can be done as a voluntary gesture, or our will can be wrested from us; the difference you may feel says a lot about your method of going through changes. It would make some sense right now to notice who wants you to stand in their shadow rather than to be illuminated by their light. It would help to observe who affirms your self-awareness and who tries to deny it. Yet something much greater is going on; many details you’re observing now will end up as notes that you don’t come back to, given the vastness of the deeper experiences that you’re going through and which will soon begin to show their results. To put it simply, it’s a different world when you know yourself well. It’s a different world when you trust your own strength.

Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
You probably think it would help if you could define precisely what you’re feeling; obviously that is not happening. It’s also become difficult to determine what you’re going through by the responses of others. Those have ceased to be meaningful, if only because they’re so wrought with contradiction. Last and definitely not least, your goals have become so diverse that you can’t define your state of mind based on your relationship to any of them. So what exactly do you do? Actually, you can afford to wait. What happens over the next few days will likely parallel what happens over the next six months; but you won’t have to wait the full six months for a clue what you’re up to, but it would be wise to live the next 24 hours with impeccable awareness, patience and a keen ear for your cue to make a move: from the look of your charts, a move into the vast unknown.

Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
What is a woman? She is part biological entity (ovaries, chromosomes, the capacity to give birth) and part social construction (learned attitude, values, fashion statements). You have a relationship to both, and so does everyone else. I suggest you make an agenda of being at peace with both the conditioned attribute and the biological one. The more you develop conscious relationships to both, the less either of them will be able to have undue influence; I’m suggesting that most of that influence would come from the choice to be unaware, unconscious or working in automatic mode. There are many influences working on you now, which seem like external forces trying to determine who you are and how you should feel about being alive. They all relate back to your parents and how they perceived your gender role; that, and who they warned you about.

Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
Imagine that the hang-ups you are processing are not your own. They feel like your own, but I’m proposing a psychic or psychological maneuver to give you a little distance and to assess things in a way that is fairer to yourself. Here is the issue as I see it. You are still drowning in your mother’s insecurities. She overcompensated for those insecurities by trying to control the entire universe, including you. I would not be surprised if this made her sick, mentally or physically. The vector of control was a mixture of emotional manipulation and applied ignorance. The remedy is to ask for what you want, state your goals honestly and make sure you take responsibility for knowing what you’re supposed to know, and for putting that information to work. You keep telling yourself you have actual goals, one of which has recently come back into focus. These three simple techniques will get you a lot closer to them.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
I recently got into a conversation with the owner of a spiritual store (statues, books, tarot cards) about whether shit is spiritual. This is another version of the conversation about whether sex is spiritual; or lust; or food; or blood. It’s another version of a very old conversation about whether what human beings feel, or who we are, is acceptable, in any form. I will skip, for the sake of a 150-word horoscope, the conversation about who benefits when the natural world and natural feelings are divided from what is considered pure enough for God, or relevant at all. I suggest you fill in the blanks, however, and ask yourself what phenomenon of your life gets assigned to good, bad, useful, pure or obscene; what you call sacred or what you call profane.

Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
We all live with enormous tension between relationship and commitment. We live with even more tension between sexual attraction and acting on that attraction. In the cartoon version of the world, men are accused of desire and women are accused of resisting desire. This is a simple formula for making everyone wrong. In reality each of us is a complex mixture of wiliness and reticence; of need and craving for independence; of active and passive approaches to existence. Relationships are based on an exchange of energy, ideas and specific forms of nourishment that in turn can be warped into power struggles. You can afford to relax. You have plenty; you have influence; people notice you. You have no need to purchase your bonding in a secret deal. You don’t need handcuffs; holding hands is enough.

Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
Relationships imply service. There is no way around this one, but there are many techniques for trying to fake it, or deny it, or to make sure that things are so imbalanced that nobody notices just how imbalanced they are. Relationships also involve cooperation, which would be a novel concept for many. Some of the most important relationships happen at work, which usually goes against the rules in the company handbook or sexual harassment guidelines. One thing we can say for sure is that your charts are strongly suggesting that you work with the concept of power sharing in a conscious way. To have an honest distribution of power, everyone needs to have their agenda on the table, and that includes revealing your deepest insecurities, and being open to hearing about those of the people close to you.

Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
Tuesday’s eclipse stands at the nexus between your house of creativity and sexuality (your solar 5th house, Cancer) and healing and service (your solar 6th house, Leo). For your purposes, you can view these two houses as being one concept for a while, with many combinations of the themes involved. This might involve a sufficiently strange reorientation that you, and others, have some difficulty figuring out how it could possibly be true; viewing sexuality as a creative expression of healing and service remains for most something in the purview of science fiction. Experiencing service as a kind of pleasure is something we typically project onto ’saints’. Yet your life has taken on some unusual dimensions lately, and events of the next few weeks promise to open doors to possibilities that you may have dreamed of, but have not quite experienced yet.

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.

Today Venus in Taurus is exactly square Chiron; Mars is close enough, applying to Chiron, to be able to feel and represent something that is happening or developing. I’ve suggested before that Venus square Chiron is about a wide open erotic/emotional expression of Venus and that Mars square Chiron is often expressed as a kind of piety, purity or block.

They are something of corollary expressions and the interesting thing is they are happening at the same time. Any of us may be picking up one or both of the energies, through ourselves and/or another person; but the moral of the story is that we’re both going through the same experience, with ourselves and with one another.

They are different planets doing the same thing, and the emphasis here is on what our experiences have in common; on the fact that we have one another’s experiences in different ways; and that we might encounter an awareness-raising factor from differing emotional registrations. And they will be experienced by ‘the public’ (that is, the people around us, represented by Aquarius planets) in different ways.

There are many pleasant ways to experience this, many unpleasant ones and in the end the whole point is to have fun and pay attention; which would be about paying attention to how your past injuries are triggered by your experiences; what effect that has on others; and what we can do to treat one another more humanely in the midst of this all.

This story from yesterday’s Associated Press, however, is a vivid expression of the dynamics. Consider that he is a public person having normal human experiences. Follow carefully the words used, and what they represent in the coded language of a newspaper.

See if you can either suspend or stand back from your moral expectations for a moment, and ignore him saying how wrong he supposedly is, so that the moralizers (among whom he was a big one) don’t kill him (big mistake he’s making, but that’s how the game is played at the moment) and tune into the underlying human dimension. For one thing, we have a left-handed admission of polyamory. This is disguised as ‘cheating’ because there is no other word for it in public use, but what he’s saying is that he has diverse relationships and this is normal for him — like it is for millions of men and women.

Remember how he voted for Bill Clinton’s impeachment three times — and use that as a metric of how far our private reality is often divorced from what we present to the public.

Note the way you think you’re supposed to be offended and that will tell you how intense public pressure is for him to conform, and to shut the fuck up if you don’t; and for you to conform in your moral repudiation of his actions. Then, when you’re done, please read this and note the contrast.

S.C. governor ‘crossed lines’ with more women
Mark Sanford denies having sex with any but his Argentine mistress

Story updated 7:50 p.m. ET, Tues., June 30, 2009

(AP) South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, already struggling to salvage his family and his political career after admission of a scandalous affair, added explosive details Tuesday, including more visits with the mistress he calls his “soul mate” and other women in his past.

The once-promising presidential prospect said he is committed to reconciling with his wife, but professed to The Associated Press his continued love for the Argentine woman at the center of the firestorm that gutted his political future.

In emotional interviews with the AP over two days, he said he would die “knowing that I had met my soul mate.”

Sanford also said that he “crossed lines” with a handful of other women during 20 years of marriage, but not as far as he did with his mistress.

“There were a handful of instances wherein I crossed the lines I shouldn’t have crossed as a married man, but never crossed the ultimate line,” he said.

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:

Following a New Moon conjunct Vesta in the sensitive first degrees of Cancer, opposite Pluto, it was quite a week for The Personal is Political. Let’s not forget the Venus-Mars conjunction. It’s fair to say that anything that happened in the news this week was about all of us, whether we think of it that way or not. We got the Aries Point in the style of the sign Cancer: the world has come crashing into our living rooms. In case we are looking for evidence of how the Aries Point (that is, the early degrees of Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn) magnifies the news and makes it our own, we have a prime example.

Three beloved American celebrities, indeed, household words even on Guam, left the planet within 24 hours: Michael Jackson, Ed McMahon, and Farrah Fawcett. Two of the three are extremely interesting sex symbols, and though this article may not be the place to get into it, the astrology gives a vivid picture of this.

Then the election crisis in Iran got a face: that of Neda Agha Soltan, the unlikely martyr: a young woman who was shot in the chest by Iranian police. The political movement in Iran has transformed to a specifically women’s movement; by some reports, two-thirds of the protesters in the streets of Tehran have been women. Or we might credit a lot of Muslim men for marching alongside their sisters. It transformed again from the perception or reality of voter fraud to a debate in the streets over whether the Islamic Republic has any credibility at all in the eyes of the Iranian people, and for that matter, the world. Remember that this country is ruled by a form of governance that draws all, as in all, of its power from the alleged dictates of a male god, his male prophet and his cadre of holy men.

Speaking of patriarchy, a young middle-school 4.0 honors student who was strip searched as zealous school officials were trying to find her alleged stash of Advil won a partial victory before the U.S. Supreme Court. That’s correct — they looked inside her undies for Advil. I’m surprised they didn’t find a tampon.

The court ruled that the search was excessive, in part because the immediately prior search of her bags and pockets revealed nothing suspicious (this is why you should never have rolling paper in your car, as that becomes probable cause); but the court immunized school administrators from personal lawsuits. This is not a good signal to send. When I was editor of New York Education Law Report, I learned all about what screwed up things go on in schools with the full knowledge and support of the administration. South Park is right.

Assoc. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a dissenting opinion. He thinks it’s okay to do this kind of thing. “Preservation of order, discipline and safety in public schools is simply not the domain of the Constitution,” he said. “And, common sense is not a judicial monopoly or a constitutional imperative.”

This quote makes no sense to me, even as the former editor of a law report. He must have copied it down wrong when Scalia was yakking at him. The Constitution does not mandate common sense, and the schools would be exempt even if they did. Right? But the conclusion is obvious. In the mind of The Hon. Assoc. Justice Pubic-Hair-in-the-Coke, clearly it must mean: off with her jeans!

Hypocrisy is a Drug

Then there’s the South Carolina governor: The Hon. Mark Sanford, who was exposed for having a relationship with a woman in Argentina, who claimed to be hiking the Appalachian Trail (look ma, I’m an Eagle Scout!) but left his easily-recognized official vehicle parked in the parking lot of a small airport — and then happened to bump into a reporter. Who recognized him as someone besides J. D. Salinger.

While this may seem like the sordid scandal of the week, it has a few special properties that make it archetypal in nature. It’s also the news event that most closely matches the astrology through the July 4 weekend, and which vibrates with some deep emotional undercurrents, and advises extra caution in affairs of the heart. That astrology also counsels extra caution where sexual or emotional hypocrisy or maybe is a factor.

Sanford is a person with a lot to lose: he was considered for the 2008 vice presidential nomination, he was a potential contender for the 2012 Republican nomination and he was chairman of the Republican Governors Association till he resigned in the wake of this news. Everyone knows that Republicans don’t have affairs. They hold the torch for the standard that how moral you look involves your personal life, set irrevocably during the Clinton impeachment.

Sanford’s conduct reveals how far we will go to get our emotional needs met, but it also speaks of the human potential for hypocrisy. And then of course there is the relationship between the two. Sanford, a congressman in the late 1990s, was a particularly harsh critic of Bill Clinton, and voted for three out of the four articles of impeachment when Clinton had an affair with his fellow Leo, Miss Lewinsky. “I think what he did in this matter was reprehensible…I feel very comfortable with my vote,” Sanford said at the time.

“The issue of lying is probably the biggest harm, if you will, to the system of Democratic government, representatives government, because it undermines trust,” Sanford told CNN in another interview. “And if you undermine trust in our system, you undermine everything.”

He has also weighed in on whether same-sex couples should have the right to marry, which means have the right to have legal sexual relationships. “As Jenny and I are the parents of four little boys, we’ve always taught our kids that marriage was something between a man and a woman,” he told The Post and Courier in 2004, according to Think Progress. As if that would prevent them from being gay.

In an email to his mistress, Sanford described her beautiful South American skin tone and tan line, the exquisite curves of her hips, and he used the term “hopelessly impossible” to describe their love affair, which evolved from an eight-year friendship. This is an example of the kinds of situations that can arise when we are in a structured relationship, have a few unmet needs, and have access to the entire world right from our desk. This describes a lot of people. I have never seen statistics on Internet-based relationships by those with supposedly monogamous primary partners, but they must be incredible.

Check out this Solstice Aspect Structure, Again

So how does this all happen at once? Well, the answer is astrology. Unrelated things are related because you can’t jump out of the universe.

Everything about the solstice/New Moon combination points back to the Aries Point, which points to events that we can all relate to, and which reflect our lives directly. It also points to sex: Venus, Mars and Pluto, for example, and a New Moon conjunct the sex goddess herself, Vesta. I know I also refer to her as the celibacy goddess — she is both.

As part of the solstice and Cancer New Moon conjunct Vesta that we experienced Monday, Venus and Mars made an exact conjunction, in a close aspect to the solstice point (00 Cancer). The solstice and subsequent Cancer New Moon happened in very early Cancer; and Venus and Mars at that moment were conjunct at 15 degrees of Taurus (the Beltane point) — creating an exact semi-square, or 45-degree angle. This, in turn, was in aspect to Pluto, specifically a 135-degree aspect called a sesquiquadrate (or sesquisquare): that is, a 90-degree aspect plus a 45-degree aspect from Venus/Mars to Pluto. The 45- and 135-degree aspects often work as triggers or tipping points.

When you see me or any other astrologer use the term degrees, we are saying: these things are related. Don’t think of it as a complicated aspect structure; think of it as a huge conjunction. They are so related as to be in one place. It’s one energy system, though drawing from different signs; but you can pile the whole thing up (which is what often happens, in terms of the results).

We have the following planets related: the Sun and Moon, the solstice point (i.e., the Aries Point), Vesta, Venus, Mars and Pluto. Remember that this is the setup for the whole season, and this season comes with a lot of eclipses, three of them, including the cliffhanger of a solar eclipse that is the subject of my extended midyear horoscope report. This astrology tells a story that will go on for months.

And Here Comes Aqueerius

During the next week or so, the celestial drama unfolds, if you can imagine such a thing. In astrology, imagination counts for a lot. The whole thing is a kind of legal fiction. It’s like a cartoon based on reality that creates reality as it goes; the more you notice, the more fun you have.

Venus and Mars are in Taurus. Both are gradually sailing into a square aspect (90-degrees, fixed sign to fixed sign) with the triple conjunction of Chiron, Jupiter and Neptune in Aquarius. Can you visualize that? First Venus (the faster moving of the Venus/Mars pair) will square the triple conjunction, starting on July 1 when Venus squares Chiron (followed soon after by Jupiter and Neptune) then four days later, Mars squares Chiron. Of course, Venus and Mars will each square Chiron, Jupiter and Neptune; so this is a very complex dynamic, and it involves every sex, gender and gender role. Even a cross-dressing bisexual can’t worm out of this one.

A square also has a way of triggering events, but it has another way of being deeply introspective. It’s as if something that’s inside ripples out, as an event. Or as may be the case, a lot of events. My intention for explaining this astrology to you is so that you can use the aspects consciously and not get dragged into something negative — but rather, apply it to deepening your relationships, to raising consciousness and for some interesting sexual experiences.

To sum up in advance: the key to taking this astrology on a positive, constructive and interesting level rather than a negative and entangled one (abundant possibility here) is tossing hypocrisy out the door of your life. This astrology is a beacon for honest transactions.

Let’s look at a few of the dynamics involved. I will save Jupiter for an afterthought — the more challenging energies are Venus and Mars square Chiron, then Neptune. This is a potentially explosive, potentially extremely fun, potentially extremely weird, potentially demented sequence of events.

Venus square Chiron can result in an uncontrolled expression of erotic energy. This is the girl in your high school who everyone thinks is beyond hot and who has a reputation for actually having sex and who you really, really want to have sex with, but you’re afraid it won’t be ’special’ for her and you’re probably right, but it would be really good, but you’re still scared for some reason — she is not, she just wants more. And she’s gonna get it, and you need to have guts to walk up to her and speak your mind (or whatever organ you want). Basically, it’s a girl like Farrah, who is kinky in part because she’s a little messed up. But she’s determined to have fun. She’s determined to let it out, and work it out that way.

One manifestation of Venus square Neptune could be: everything is like a dream, you cannot tell what’s real and what’s not; what’s coming from your hormones and what’s coming from your brain and what’s coming from, um, someplace else. You’re not supposed to care where it’s coming from; you don’t care what pill it is. It’s all too good to be true and maybe too much to be fun — to appreciate this aspect you need a taste for excess (particularly with Jupiter right there). You need to violate public moral standards (Aquarius) for it to be really fun. Jupiter can make it seem like whatever you’re doing can have huge consequences, which may or may not be true; but it’s worth the risk.

Chiron square Mars turns this whole thing inside out. I will give a male example. He is the guy who is so stunning that all the girls/women are dripping for him, but he’s a proper kind of fellow, despite being the hottest drummer for miles around. The propriety is part of his appeal, but it’s a trap.

He has this thing about sex being sacred, and he won’t get naked with anyone unless they are destined to be really, really special. The standard is impossible to meet; it’s religious in nature. You are human, not a deity; he wants a deity. He is the anti-Vesta: sex symbol and closet prude. He probably thinks pussies smell bad, but they’re ’sacred’, so he won’t say anything. Anyway, he’s unlikely to find out, but he’s waiting for just the right girl; the one from another planet that he read about once in a science fiction novel. The one more powerful than him. You may be that girl, but you have to prove it. It’s just that you’ll hardly ever get the chance.

Add a square to Neptune and this whole thing can go Kamikaze. He will do heroin and get with a hooker to blow off steam. But it won’t be as much fun as he was hoping. Add Jupiter and it’s several hookers plus some alcohol, too much coffee and a bipolar episode.

The Awake Way to Do This

Aspects can and always do have many manifestations — and they are what we make them; they exist on the level we experience or express them. What we make of them is related to who we are becoming, consciously or not. The cautionary side of this story is to remember human nature, and to remember your nature.

Using aspects like this consciously, there would be a matter of choice involved, rater than only compulsion. The key is to be aware of both potentials. The choice would ideally based on one’s true values (Venus and/or Mars in Taurus) and remembering where and how these intersect with those of the larger society (the square to slow-moving planets together in Aquarius). The thing to bear in mind is that we find our values planets together in Aquarius). The thing to bear in mind is that we find our values through a process of experimentation, including testing out norms.

One Chiron connection is to be mindful where one’s sense of lack, injury or craving could cause us express ourselves in ways that are out of balance; remembering that we also have a need to do specifically that. Looked at one way, human existence is about exploring the territory between balance and imbalance.

There is something here about being mindful that we are trying to get deeper emotional needs met while we do things that may be ‘just for fun’ or ‘just because we have to’ — and to be aware what might happen as a result of different kinds of choices. the Taurus connection is about remembering that we make different choices based on our level of self-esteem. Often that process comes into relationship with this thing coming out of aquarius called peer pressure, which often includes the brainwashing to have a low opinion of oneself.

Neptune’s presence in the square is a reminder to be aware of ‘unconscious’ impulses, the influence of loneliness and the tendency to rationalize, and instead to be honest about our needs and desires as early as possible and to explore experience from there. Mars square Chiron warns against going on a purity trip or moral trip while directly indulging in that which one supposedly is against.

The presence of Venus and Mars suggest that we look at how we (for example as men and women) take the same kinds of experiences in different ways: but that we are indeed having common experiences.

Taken together, Venus, Mars and Pluto are about sex and the dance of the genders, and the common forces that influence all gender identifications; internal and external. Chiron in any form is about raising awareness, and some injury, usually in the past, is typically involved. Neptune is about the imagination and, taken in an active, healthy way, it’s about making fantasy experiences real. Vesta is about devotion to a process, a person, an experience or a necessity.

I called up Dale O’Brien today to get his spin on this whole arrangement — of which he sees Vesta as a centerpiece.

“Vesta is more about the Vestal than the goddess; devoting oneself to someone or something,” he said. “She is very big in decision making. Women were chattel in Rome, perhaps worse than in Greece. The Vestal Virgins were taken at a young age [some say as young as seven]. When they came to midlife, they had a decision to make: to rededicate their life to being devoted to the temple, or they could leave the temple and and be free women. They could go from total obscurity to being very powerful. Vesta’s role in the solstice chart is an enormously powerful placement, but its power is missed because its power is understated.

“Now with this solstice conjunct Vesta, there is enormous issue about what people are going to dedicate themselves to, particularly in the face of Plutonic changes.

“I don’t think [Gov. Mark Sanford] is just another sex scandal. It has a larger archetypal quality. It’s like, if there was going to be a nuclear attack in 24 hours what would you do? Most people would make love, no questions asked.

“You know, it could be all over. What are you going to do with your life? Are you living in a strong connection to the life force? This includes conscious sexuality.”

Yours & truly,

Eric Francis

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 Monday referred to below refers to June 22.

Northern Hemisphere summer begins Monday with a series of planetary events, and as often happens, events in close proximity describe a theme. When the Sun makes its ingress into the cardinal sign Cancer, it will be conjunct an asteroid called Vesta.

This magnificently complex asteroid, I believe, holds the key to understanding how we might go about healing our often injured, burdened and confused sense of our sexuality. In one word, the method is devotion.

In this article I’ll do my best to describe the qualities of Vesta in a way that makes it possible to feel and experience them — and to put them to use in our relationship experiences. Vesta is primarily about tending the fire within. That fire, and that experience of constantly caring for it, becomes the focal point for organizing space; that is, the psychic space of our lives, our priorities, and our beliefs.

Vesta is represented by a hearth (actually, a chevron, though in mythology it’s a hearth), and that hearth is the center of the home. We make our homes, comfortably or not, primarily within our psyches. The fire is the core fire of human existence, which is inherently sexual and creative. We use this fire for light, for heat, for creative purposes (you could say, to prepare our meals, whatever form they may take on the physical and nonphysical levels of existence).

Honoring this would give our daily lives and our relationships, whether sexual or not, a central concept to work with. Vesta is inherently about one’s relationship with oneself, which is the thing we share with others no matter what form that sharing might take. It may seem a paradox, but there is a touch of the impersonal to Vesta, which to me is about a boundary between self and other that gives everyone a little extra space to be who we are. Yet there is something collective about Vesta as well: we all share the same inner fire, whether we recognize it as the same thing or not.

In the solstice chart, the Sun meets up with Vesta in Cancer, a sign associated with nourishment, nurturing, emotions, mother and the experience of incarnating. The Sun is about expression. It is the source of all light in the astrological system; it is the central point that holds the solar system together and provides an anchor for awareness and for one’s tangible place in the world. So Sun/Vesta in Cancer is one version of the full expression of Vestal energy.

The next day, there is a New Moon, with Sun, Moon and Vesta in a precise conjunction. This is the first of many potent lunations (including three eclipses in July and August) that defines the current stretch of time. Happening so close to the beginning of a season (with the Sun still at solstice), this New Moon activates events that occur on a large scale that feel personal; and personal events that reach past our individual lives toward a collective experience.

Remember, this can be subtle, and noticing that anything of this kind is happening requires inner sensitivity and a sense of context that could truly be described as spiritual.

At the same time there is a conjunction of Venus and Mars in Taurus. A Venus/Mars conjunction brings together the male and female principles, and in Taurus there is the recognition that we each contain both, in our psyches and our bodies. The Taurus connection describes this as a resource that we possess and can share with others, once we take ownership of it ourselves. This is a clue. Much of our sexual pain comes from trying to experience our sexuality without actually being in possession of it first.

This event, too, is occurring in one of those subtle zodiac positions that connects personal events to collective ones — at the precise midpoint of Taurus, where the Sun is on Beltane. You can be sure that plenty of other people are experiencing something similar to what you are. Here as well, we get a sexual theme; Taurus is about sensuality, self-possession, physical contact and a property called biophilia. This is about resonating with life, which we get in part from the connection between Taurus and Venus. I covered this quality fairly recently in an article called “Kaleo: Venus Unbound.”

Let’s take these two factors individually, the Vesta aspect and the Venus/Mars aspect; and then let’s see what they add up to.

Vesta: Tending Fire, Holding Space

I had my first conscious experience of Vestal energy one autumn when I moved into a house in Hurley, New York. I love this experience because it’s an example of how an event in life can open the door to something supposedly mystical or mythological.

At the time we moved in, my housemates and I didn’t have a lot of money, so we couldn’t start up the oil heat; but there was a very nice wood stove and a big pile of wood to go with it. However, the wood was wet, because it was pretty old and the season had been very rainy.

It’s possible to burn wet wood, but it takes a lot of work to get it going, and to keep it going. (It’s also a lot less efficient.) Once the fire was started, it was essential to keep it running hot, and to cycle the firewood into the kitchen so that it would have a chance to dry off next to the stove, if possible. This became a 24-hour devotion. The stove had to be tended at least every three or four hours. Being a few years into my astrology work, the Vestal symbolism of tending a hearth was not lost on me. This activity was similar to what the Vestal Virgins had as one of their primary responsibilities: to keep the sacred flame in the city’s central hearth going all the time.

As mystics, we regard outer fire as a symbol of an inner fire. The inner fire is the individual creative source within the psyche. Vesta, the asteroid, is associated with various forms of devotion, such as to work. (Most astrology books you read that mention Vesta will associate it with things like staying late at the office, and avoiding social interaction.) I view Vesta as the place where we must tend to our creative and sexual fires. Basically, it’s how one becomes an artist, a craftsperson or a lover. One must constantly apply attention to the creative flame, otherwise it can flicker out, burn too hot or go out of control. It’s not something you can do occasionally and get the same results. People with regular jobs often think of artists as ‘workaholics’. But that is an idea that disconnects the concept of work from that of personal development.

Many of Vesta’s best results come specifically from the art of devotion itself. As we progress we learn that we have the choice of what we devote ourselves to.

The flame and embers provide a source of heat, of light and of energy. They become the central organizing principle around which one’s life is organized. We all use Vestal energy, though most people express it in devotion to things that are not necessarily associated with their true calling. So the idea here is to identify some aspect of that calling and then tend the flame continually, a little bit every day. Then true creative gifts can emerge, and begin to take on their vital role in the world.

In the sign Cancer, the focus is on the home. It’s also about cultivating the devotion to self-nourishment. This is about taking care of yourself, not ‘rewarding’ yourself. The work associated with Vesta is of a specifically self-nourishing kind, even though in the short run it may require more effort than seems worth it. The key is to work the devotional angle, rather than the effort angle; Vesta is my college fiction professor saying on the first day of class that to be a fiction writer one must write one word a day. That means, you return to the project daily.

The sexual aspect of Vesta involves making contact with the sexual dimension to all of existence. The inner flame lights up the space inside us, and there, we can do our healing work. It also creates an inviting environment where others can seek contact, healing and rest. Vestal erotic practices involve holding the space open for others, witnessing their processes and experiences, and giving oneself sexually to sexual pleasure of others, as a gift of healing or love. This has nothing to do with romance, which tends to be narcissistic. Vesta is about standing back a little and allowing others to experience the heat of your inner fire, so that they may experience their own, or light it up for the first time.

Vesta is also about practicing compersion: holding space for the pleasure of others, that does not directly involve you. But this is another article, or maybe a book.

Venus and Mars: Exploring Inner Completion

In our relationships, we’re usually taught to seek in others what we allegedly don’t have in ourselves. This is the cause of enormous chaos, which is largely driven by compulsion, false expectation and by being cut off from both self-knowledge and human contact. The world plays a very mean game of turning emotional contact and sex into a commodity, without ever really saying what the price is.

There are other themes contained in a Venus and Mars conjunction. For example, our over-identifying with prescribed gender roles frequently creates setups where it’s difficult to recognize the common ground we share with others. This common ground would be the basis of our relationships, if we would allow it to be.

Venus and Mars conjunct in Taurus is about seeking some experience of how we contain our opposite polarity. This is literally true; for example, both males and females produce hormones of the opposite sex. Heterosexual-identified people can and often do experience sexual fantasies and attractions to people of either sex. Psychologically, we often emulate or express a diversity of gender attributes. Many of us envy the opposite sex in small and large ways.

Venus and Mars conjunct in Taurus bring this quality into focus, particularly at such a powerful time as the solstice. Taurus, and a conjunction, both point to an interior quality, something that we all contain within ourselves. It happens that this is something we seek in others all the time. The combination of Venus and Mars conjunct, and the Sun and Vesta conjunct, suggest that more than needing something, we all actually possess something that we can share, if we take care of it regularly.

Wouldn’t that be novel? Wouldn’t that be a new, useful definition of self-esteem?

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 Moon is in early Aquarius, about to cross Rahu, the mean North Node (it crossed the True Node earlier this morning).This is a busy day for the Moon, as it will oppose the asteroid Pallas, square Venus and Mars and sextile Pholus, before moving on overnight Friday to make a conjunction to the Jupier-Chiron-Neptune conjunction.

Squares from the Moon to Venus call on us to get our emotional needs met in straightforward ways, rather than the usual scandals.

From Aquarius to Taurus, we have one of those classic setups between ‘freedom’ and ’stability’ or between openness and possessiveness or between monogamy and polyamory, or between independence and bonding, as you choose to look at it (and there are other ways). The meaningful bit here is that there is no one right way to share or exchange within emotional or sexual relationships.

If there is one wrong way, it is to make any one way allegedly compulsory. Nobody really listens, and the result is a lot of anguish and the temptation, mainly, to be dishonest. There’s also a necessary indulgence in guilt as a form of pleasure under this model, as guilt is the inevitable result of rule-breaches and transgressions, oft including mental ones.

There is a better way to do things.

I happen to be born with this square; an Aquarius Moon square Venus in Taurus. If you’ve ever wondered just why it is that I’m so…normal, here’s one theory.

My life often feels like an invention process to resolve the various puzzles of this square: the stability and need for deep embrace of Venus in Taurus; coupled with my authentic need to be my own person, to be emotionally free and inherently social as a fact of my close relating to others. Venus in Taurus has a touch of the traditional. Moon in Aquarius offers the original; it seeks groups; it has a tendency to sulk if it’s mind is not engaged constructively.

Details from my chart are: the Moon is in the 8th conjunct Vesta. Venus is in the 11th conjunct Photographica, an asteroid. Yes, astrology can be that ridiculously expressive of one’s life.

One way it shakes out is: I’m personally too liberated to be very comfortable around the ‘pair bonding or death’ mentality; and at the same time I need bonding closer than seems generally available among those who practice the forms of liberation I’ve encountered. I am aware that a lot of people in various poly movements are working out this same paradox. It would make an interesting series of interviews to see how some of these people apply themselves to the situation.

Both the Moon and Venus contain a piece of their opposites in these signs. For example, the Aquarius Moon is in a sign ruled by Saturn; it wants some structure at the same time it needs independence. Venus in Taurus is the ruler of her sign. She needs comfort, bonding, and familiarity — but needs to be free to make her own choices all the time, and to express her devotion her own way. Evangeline Adams described this Venus (in the 1930s) as having a reputation for being promiscuous, you know, a bit of a libertine, until she finds exactly what she wants.

Venus in Taurus wants to feel, to be in the senses, to embrace physically and emotionally. The Moon in Aquarius wants something that works for everyone, and knows that humans are inherently free no matter what our temporary needs may be; there must (it knows) be a way to reconcile freedom with having our needs met in a stable way that is emotionally responsible. An inventor, it cares not that most people pretend to have given up on this theme.

The square to Mars, which happens around 9 tonight in the Eastern zone, is to say: if the frustration of the seeming paradoxes of an Aquarius Moon square Venus in Taurus start to get annoying, respond with pasison rather than with anger; or at least be honest about the anger and move onto passion. Pallas Athene is in the mix. Remember your negotiation skills.

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.