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

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

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

Today the Moon is in Capricorn, about to make a conjunction to Pluto and a square to Saturn. This is one of those aspects that’s going to feel really good to some people and not so good to others. The really good part is: depth, passion, structure, focus, intensity. The less pleasant part could be: feeling boxed in, feeling lonely, feeling emotionally out of control. This is not a good day to clash with authority, but rather to practice being your own authority.

Note to readers: This is the today’s Tuesday edition of Planet Waves, posted here as a sample of what [sometimes] arrives in weeks when there’s no monthly horoscope. This is premium content, usually available only to subscribers. You can subscribe using one of the options on the top right of this diary frame.

Good Morning!

As you may have figured out by now, Tuesday horoscopes are on an as-available basis. Currently I write two monthly horoscopes, which run the first two Tuesdays that the Sun is in a new sign. The rest of the Tuesdays, I send a letter. Today, you get a letter: about a chart I will be using later today to write Friday’s horoscope — that is, Saturday’s Aquarius New Moon.

If you are in a hurry and want some useful information, here is my summary of the chart: you may need to take an odd path to figuring out what you want. You may need to ‘back into your desire’, or find it by making what you perceive as a mistake; you may discover what you want by an experience of conflict that resolves itself quickly and then leaves you with real information. Therefore you need to be mindful of experiences that teach you what you don’t want, and therefore provide information about what you do want.

One other point. What you want and how you feel about that influences your environment — particularly your mental environment but also your direct ‘physical’ environment. Your conscious desire changes the world around you, and has an influence on elements of life that you thought were ‘too powerful’ to respond to you. Therefore, focus on what you want and observe how the local cosmos responds. Observe how you respond.

One last point. This is a good time to observe your conditioning patterns and see the ways in which you are influenced by groups and by the media. Until we do something about it, we are all brainwashed by the influences of others who are trying to tell us what is supposed to be good for us (a luxury car, an awesome new deodorant, chewing gum that makes you hallucinate). To move out of that level of consciousness primarily takes awareness.

Now, how did I get there? Are these kinds of declarative statements really possible? (Note to English majors: astrology writing is a literary format, in which I am expected to give you useful material that you can actually apply to your life. But this is a kind of mental trick; it’s useful because I interpret it in a way that slants it in that direction.

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This weekend was packed with Centaur movement on the theme of sex, and the emotional content of eroticism. At the end of last week and on Saturday, we experienced the peak of Sun-Nessus conjunct. That stirred the pot: it may have been a frantic moment, a crisis point, the sense of ’something coming up’ or ’something coming back’. Sun-Nessus can make experiences of sexual shadow particularly conscious. This can be frightening, and it’s territory that takes time to learn: at first it can seem impossible to breathe in there.

That having passed, Venus moved through a conjunction with Chiron and Neptune in late Aquarius overnight Saturday and into Sunday. I am sure there was some very hot sex that went around, particularly in the sense of the power of the imagination that opened up. With the Neptune-Aquarius signature, this is some potent internet imagery: the Net is this cloud-like thing that is an electrical vector of whatever you put into it, and in this case what we had was Venus.

There is always a physical element to she, and we all know how hot it is to mix the psychic opening with physical gratification. The frightening part of psychic is of course letting out one’s secrets, that is, one’s secret desires, which can seem to threaten a relationship. Yet these corridors of heart and soul can also yield nourishing fruit, be it ripe or raw, nibbled gently or bitten into with teeth and throat. And this is where pleasure mixes with healing: the pleasure is the lure of the food, and the healing is the nourishment absorbed.

From these days, I am sure you have a few confidential tales of your own.

Good morning readers, this is an excerpt from today’s Planet Waves Astrology News. The article is about Mars retrograde in Leo, but today’s Sun-Nessus conjunction in Aquarius reinforces the theme. This excerpt looks at the relationship between Leo and Aquarius, and points out how the social rules that seem to run our culture work, or more appropriately, do not work. –efc

Leo is opposite Aquarius. These two make an interesting pair, having lots to do with the intersection of the individual and the collective: that is, the many places in astrology where I becomes We. If that we is any form of social group, its rules can be harsh and in many cases not openly stated. Many of those rules set a low tolerance for individuality and the expression of curiosity, no matter how ‘progressive’ the social group in question may fancy itself being.

Leo describes a special kind of individuality: it’s expressive in a way that Aries only begins. Aries is the point of initiation and Leo is the point of more mature, creative, stable expression.

True, Leo is associated with kids, though the Sun (which rules Leo) is associated with adults and expressing adult power. Those who devote themselves to creative process need to be in contact with both the adult and the child aspects of Leo at the same time: the child for curiosity and inspiration, and the adult for guidance and boundaries.

This is not so easy for most people, who tend to be in parent/child mode: for example, needing to be told what to do, feeling powerless or over-controlling, or being unable to handle their whims.

Aquarius presents another aspect of the challenge. This sign represents the psychological tension between an individual and a group; or an idea supported by a group. Aquarius is the sign of individuality, and also the sign of rigid conformity, often to the notions of people who have unusual influence. It reminds me a little of the Army, which sells itself as elite and individualistic, but it’s really about doing exactly what you’re told. To break out of that takes self-awareness and a deep, soul-felt desire to individuate.

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Three of the most potent aspects now in effect involve what are called Centaur planets — a class of small, icy or rocky planets orbiting our Sun. The first one discovered was Chiron, in 1977. These kids don’t behave like asteroids, which mostly add detail and literary richness to a reading. They don’t behave like traditional planets, which establish the main lines of energy and dominant, obvious personality traits.

Centaurs talk about where we are doing the deep work, or where we need to be doing it. They suggest where we’ve been hurt and are therefore concentrating either power, or pain; they describe the shadowy parts of our psyche, places of doubt, fear and denial; and they can represent extraordinary gifts that we must learn how to handle.

The aspects begin with Sun conjunct Nessus. This is a fast-moving aspect exact on Friday, at 17+ Aquarius. Nessus is a planet that talks about the karmic implications of our actions. Its action is cyclical, that is, the story goes in an ellipse and comes back to remind us what happened. Therefore it also has historical implications, and is frequently used to decode any history of abuse or potential abuse that we may have experienced.

Aquarius takes this to the level of the collective: much of the abuse that we experience is at the hands of groups and elite institutions that tell us who we’re supposed to be, not be, hate being, envy, or whatever. Sun-Nessus in Aquarius is about seeing these rules for what they are. In general, they are brutal, contradictory, unspoken and designed to protect the egos of the insecure; and most of all they are the toxic byproducts of advertising; which is generally designed to make everyone else feel insecure or inadequate.

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