Backbone > Planet Waves
Horoscopes for 11-02
by Eric Francis

Aries (March 20-April 19)
Your current experience of life is, to put it mildly, being colored by an encounter with someone who is overtly demonstrating the reality of who you are inside. Though you may wonder about balance, limits, and equilibrium, for an Aries these are largely theoretical abstractions on the level of String Theory or perhaps Catholicism. It may be unusual to meet anyone who can match your intensity, creativity, and will, but I assure you it’s far more odd to have it occur in a time when so much is available to you in terms of inner harmony and the constructive flow of energy. Events of the coming two months will present you with an opportunity to completely redefine, but moreover personally embody, what you consider spiritual. Let’s put it this way—it’s not what you thought, and it’s a lot better than you thought.

Taurus (April 19-May 20)
It may seem like taking responsibility for your role in what’s developing is some kind of admonishment or even punishment, but really it represents a major step toward freedom. As a citizen of the cosmos, it would be wise to remember the official cosmic motto, Change Happens. I also recommend considering that what is appearing on the radar as a significant challenge is, in reality, someone else’s problem and merely your situation. There is a very big difference. Much that’s being directed at you is another person’s subconscious fear, for which you are a convenient screen. But projection is like light: it can’t really hurt you, unless you confuse it with reality. But why do that, when there’s so much more available, and when you’re finally figuring out that you’re neither weak, nor small, nor lost? To say the very least.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
I am not sure you’ve registered how easy the changes you want to make in your life will actually be once you dedicate yourself to them and take action. The childlike nature of Gemini has had a heavy couple of years under the influence of Saturn, but your ongoing project under this transit has been about reconciling the often wildly contradictory aspects of your nature. To say that you have been compelled to take yourself seriously is a good start, but I must add that doing so is the only way you’re going to get to express the perpetually young, incredibly curious quality of who you are. But there is another side to the matter. You are not as flaky as people claim you are, and they are not as stable as they claim to be. Does that matter? Well yes, to you.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
You have everything to celebrate, and are about to encounter many opportunities to do so. That you may also sense the approach of important changes in the pattern of your life presents an opportunity to create those patterns consciously with the loving, even daring, quality of the next few weeks. Your life is especially responsive to corrections now, as well as any efforts directed at improving your health, mental stability, and adjusting your workflow so that you can live in a more balanced way. The key to all of this is mindfulness. Be mindful of what you are working with in the way of resources, both human and material. Make a point to sense the abundance around you now, and within. Use what you have consciously. Be mindful of what you are striving to accomplish, and most of all, why.

Leo (July 22-August 23)
I was asked today to comment briefly on the strengths and weaknesses of a beloved Leo-incarnate friend who is entering a top-flight leadership training program. For strengths, I wrote: “She is capable of some of the deepest states of empathy I’ve ever experienced emanating from a person. She is working with extraordinarily high intelligence and a genuine social vision.” And for weaknesses: “My sense is that she’s still not sure people really love her, or she doubts why they do. She may struggle with an impulse to be accommodating, or feel guilty for expressing her personal needs or leadership needs.” These strengths and weaknesses emerge from the same place and are evidence of how we turn injury and loss into power and the gift of healing. To the extent that past issues are holding you back, a condition which you might sum up as the karma of love, get ready for a giant leap for feline kind.

Virgo (August 23-September 22)
There is still a substantial stretch of time ahead during which everything you touch can turn to gold. The essence of current aspects is that you are in possession of an extraordinary level of command over the material aspects of your own life, which in this world is saying a lot. But that mastery comes with a degree of self-respect that has arrived with the potential for a greatly increased cooperation factor from the people around you. There is also a close-to-perfect balance of energy along the initiate/stabilize/revise spectrum. The challenge is that, mentally, you may feel you’re not really able to focus. But the kind of focus you were once accustomed to is no longer what you need. Keep your eye on the big picture, practice your cello (or other favorite instrument of pleasure), and the details will take care of themselves.

Libra (September 22-October 23)
I am beginning to think that Libra is the most intense sign. Astrology books keep reminding us you have a hard time deciding what brand of peanut butter to buy, and then the universe produces the likes of John Lennon, Eleanor Roosevelt, Oscar Wilde, Carrie Fisher, astrologer Patric Walker, of Quaker activist and political leader William Penn, Grateful Dead firebrand Brent Mydland—and little ol’ you. As you progress in the wholesale rearrangement of everything you ever thought about yourself and why you are on this Earth, consider just how much energy you carry, how many ideas you have for what to do with it, and why you would ever possibly decide that you don’t have the utmost privilege of expressing yourself. Feel the passion of your soul burning now, feel its need to express its beauty into the physical universe, take a deep breath, and please say yes.

Scorpio (October 23-November 22)
Roll with the changes in one particular relationship and use everything as an opportunity to raise your awareness. What else is life for? I also suggest questioning the notion that anything much is happening outside of the rapid evolution of your own values and value of yourself. These are concepts I’ve referred to repeatedly in recent months: value and self-esteem. The change, for you, is happening in two stages. One is a radical transformation in your self-concept, your idea of who you are, which progress is in part based on gaining a deep understanding of who you once were, and who you were to all your past partners. The second change will arrive in the form of a series of perhaps stunning revelations of what these facts add up to. The feeling will be like a blindfold coming off, or opening a door to a closet and finding a whole house on the other side.

Sagittarius (November 22-December 22)
You may not be aware of it fully, but an entirely new energy has taken the helm of your life. An analogy might be the idea of a harbor captain. When ships pulls into most seaports, the port shuttles a locally-trained sea pilot to steer the ship through the channels within that particular harbor. It is still the captain's ship, but an expert is at the helm. But at the moment, it's more like you're leaving familiar shores and entering higher, deeper seas, and for that, you've been given a new sense of presence in the world, a special gift of perception and a consciousness through which you can experiment with different ways of making decisions. Though we all know the old way isn't necessarily the right way, we also know choosing again can be quite the challenge. Become the right way, in other words, identify fully with it, and failure is impossible.

Capricorn (December 22-January 20)
There is still time to respond to what your intuition is telling you. There is still time to prepare a plan of action and move on it. My concern is that you may be acting as if there is forever, or as if your intentions alone will get you what you want or need. In a certain cosmic sense of the word, there is indeed forever, and intentions are so very important. But neither are the real issue now, which is perhaps the deepest question you have ever faced. With Chiron making its way across your sign, the question of whether you have the right to exist may be howling in the wind, or vibrating beneath your feet, or shaking the blood in your heart. There are, I would say, three possible answers to that question. Perhaps consider them seriously, each in turn, and see what information that yields, and notice whether it prompts you to get into high gear.

Aquarius (January 20-February 19)
Consider yourself on a kind of unexpected journey north, into regions of mind or spiritual terrain you’ve never visited but which somehow seem vaguely familiar. On this journey you are the keeper of a vision. That you have not inscribed it in stone does not matter, and that it is subject to change makes it all the more valid. A vision needs to be treated as a living thing, subject to needs for nourishment, love, interaction with people, and expression in the world. That expression may come in seemingly small forays, but they are more vital than you may, at the moment, think. This vision is more vital to your whole process of living than you may recognize. It is in many ways your sole source of nourishment. And great things are within closer reach for you now than they have been in many, many years, but they’re not quite what you were expecting.

Pisces (February 19-March 20)
Most people have not figured out that they are not their parents. Most have not figured out that there are ways to relate to people other than those which involve authority, control, and expectation. And, while I’m on a roll making accurate generalizations, most of us have not figured out that it’s not our fault that we’re so hard on ourselves. Whether you recognize it or not, these are issues you have been working your way through, over an extended but no less intense period of time. It would appear that you are reaching a point of birthing into a dimension of authentic self that is only available to those who have made progress in these crucial discoveries. What unfolds over the coming six to eight weeks may seem automatic, but it is nothing of the sort. You have earned your success.

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