Planet Waves by Eric Francis

 

Be Our Valentine


By Eric Francis | Feb. 14, 2002

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Terra

The New Moon happened Monday night, a rare and exceptional lunation and clearly the start of something big, or strange, or at least different. For one thing, the Chinese Year of the Black Horse, which begins today. Happy New Year to the billion-plus people who celebrate this as the start of their annual journey through life. Planets are changing signs like wild: The Sun into Pisces this weekend, with Venus newly into Pisces and Mercury about to go into Aquarius (after the retrograde) and Luna, of course, always moving through our lives like the cue ball of the cosmos, in Pisces for Valentine's Day. What does it all mean? What does it ever! Now is the time to give up a little fear in exchange for more of life. In honor of this, I share with you some lyrics from Alphaville's album Forever Young.

Some are like water
Some are like the heat
Some are a melody and some are the beat
Sooner or later, they all will be gone
Why don't they stay young?
It's so hard to get old without a cause
I don't want to perish like a fading horse
Youth's like diamonds in the sun
And diamonds are forever
So many adventures couldn't happen today
So many songs we forgot to play
So many dreams swinging out of the blue
We'll let them come true

Sign dates below are approximate. They now overlap by one day. The date and time of the Sun's ingress to the new sign changes a little each year, so please check with an astrologer if you want the exact position of your Sun, and while you're at it, your rising sign -- this horoscope is written for both your Sun and rising signs. If you find that some other sign's interpretations work for you, then go for it.

Astrology Readings on CD by Eric Francis

Aries (March 20-April 21)
I suggest you not try for any easy outs, or easy ins. An opportunity is looking you right in the face. It may be challenging, and it is bound to change your life if you meet the demands, but there are rewards beyond what is possible from any project that involves little risk, or little dare. And those rewards far exceed what is possible in the 'safe' financial realm. One of them is existing within your community in a whole new way, which is truly mutually profitable and beneficial to both you and it. But the question is, can you handle freedom? Unfortunately, most people cannot, even bold Aries-heads.

Taurus (April 21-May 20)
By now you may be recognizing certain bottom-line issues on the career front, just as a new horizon opens up, seemingly out of nowhere. What you are looking at, for the second or third time but seemingly for the first, will surely challenge the rather high value you put on stability, but of itself, there is only so far stability gets you in a fast-changing world, or within a fast-changing human mind. Indeed, to be stable, you must allow a measure of real change to enter the biological process of your life. But more than that, you are being called upon to exceed a limit long ago set upon you that is, of itself, not in your nature. Unless, of course, you insist that it is.

Gemini (May 20-June 21)
You have waited long enough. Or have you? I don't blame you for hesitating. I don't blame you for wanting to think things through in a careful and structured way, and for wanting every detail of your plan worked out, and for having some healthy respect and caution for the larger powers-that-be. However, in a little while, you are apt to throw caution to the wind no matter what you think or plan now, and you might want to invest your energy in making sure you have a little extra cash and a few free weekends, and keep your backpack by the door, to collect sundry items like your favorite sunglasses.

Cancer (June 21-July 22)
After this week's new moon in Aquarius, your 8th solar house, it may take a little while for the dust to settle and the image of the immediate landscape to come into focus. The crisis you were dealing with for so long has ended. You may have wasted some time, but you are not harmed, and in fact, you are standing in a lot wider and wilder world than you were just a short time ago. I would propose that at this point in your life, you don't owe anyone anything, unless you think you do, and I suggest you think carefully.

Leo (July 22-Aug. 22)
There is no accounting for the change in one particular relationship, unless you account for that change within yourself. We do spend quite a bit of time in this world making lots of people into someone who they are not. At the same time, they deserve it because they tend to make theirselves into someone they ain't. And we do tend to invest an awful lot of time and energy into being someone who we are not, even, at times, the sincere among us. The three go together, and add up to a world where few people actually know one another and most are scared to. Have we had enough? I hope you have had enough.

Virgo (Aug. 22-Sep. 22)
I am not going to write presuming it's been the week from Hades, Purgatory and Cyber-hell. Even if it was, forget it; shit happens. There is a reason for the chaos you endured, that reason being that in this particular world, where we tend to be so rigid and cling to control, very little happens without a blast of the stuff to get things started, and to weed out the chickens from the turkeys, so as there's plenty of room for the sheep, who hopefully give way to the occasional man or woman who happens to appear. Turkeys, chickens, sheep, men and women. Remember, Virgo, the choice is yours.

Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23)
As I am writing, Venus is one arc minute of longitude away from Pisces. No, wait, she just changed signs, even as I write the Libra horoscope, after such a very long wait (I am sure my editor is saying the same thing; this column was due yesterday). Why is Venus in Pisces good for you? Because Venus in Pisces is good for everyone, and you are especially sensitive to her womanly wiles. I daresay that Venus is the most at home in this sign. She does well with the aesthetic sensitivities of Libra and the stable, luxurious side of Taurus. But Libra is a touch mental for the lady, or is it sentimental; and Taurus is a tad practical. Pisces, I propose, is all of the above, plus stewed fruit and brandy. I imagine you'll be right at home.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22)
Someone is likely to have just come into your field of vision. I raise a toast to the lesbian Scorpios in the reading audience, but if you're not one of these babes, don't sulk too much. Something really nice is in the air, a chance worth taking, a risk worth making. The Scorpio-like part is the mystery, the erotic power, the sense of feeling. The unscorpio part is the lightness, the sense of mobility and the discovery that some particular kinds of change happen only in places you haven't gotten to yet, but we both know that you're well on your way there. In the words of the Martian Valentine Michael Smith, drink deeply.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22)
Among the two clients I spoke to today who were seriously doubting whether they wanted to be on the planet, one was a Sagittarius; the other was a Pisces. Both said they were guaranteed a spell longer on this spinning world because of the fact that they have children. And what if you don't? This is why it's a crucial survival tactic here to devote your life to a creative process of some kind. Not 'creativity' per se, but a process in which you engage with the world in not just a constructive, but a self-creative way. Creativity is about you, not 'it'. And you do exist, though you seem to be discovering this for the first time every day, much to your surprise.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20)
This is, or has been, quite a moment of suspense; or rather, suspended suspense prior to an uncertain outcome. You may rightly think that careful planning is extremely valuable to you at this moment: a strategy, a life plan, doing things the right way. The problem is that there is no right way, not at this point. There is no clear direction forward, there is only what you care about, if only you would really care about it. There is only the beautiful gift you possess, which you must feel, and in which you must have faith. I borrow a second time from Alphaville, for a few words of cosmic guidance: It's so supersensual, sentimental / forget about your deepest fears / switch back to the golden years.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19)
No matter what is happening, ask yourself what is true and what is not. Ask about everything. Test everything, and note whether it's an illusion or a reality, and ask which kind of which. It's a little like in the film Waking Life (released late 2001): if you try to turn the lights on and off by way of the switch but nothing happens, you can be pretty sure it's a dream. There is nothing wrong with dreams, just as long as you know that you're dreaming them, and you find the way to get yourself from that world back to what you usually call reality -- but with your wisdom intact, unwilling to sacrifice love, and confident that there is more to life than has happened so far, even if it has happened so many times.

Pisces (Feb. 19-Mar. 20)
"The need for freedom was apparently strong enough on someone's part to force me out of my living situation," writes one of our more ardent Pisces readers. "Unless I can pull together a significant amount of cash in the next couple weeks, my family will find itself homeless at the end of February." Yes, Fish people, something is brewing in the void where none can see quite so clearly, the Causal Plane, where what was not becomes that which is. If indeed your life is in some turmoil right now, just keep paying attention, steer your ship well, and wait for further information. And if things are going dandy, don't allow your attention to lapse. There are some rich fruits about to come ripe, but they are the kind of fruits you need to allow to come to you, and that you need to notice.

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Space graphic above from the Rosette Nebula in Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Sulfur.
Credit: T. A. Rector, B. Wolpa, M. Hanna. Planet Waves logo by Eric, and Via Davis.