| two thousand two, looking beyond | | Planet Waves by Eric Francis Note: I have updated the Gemini horoscope as of Dec. 12. | | Aries (March 20-April 21) | | IDEAS ABOUT LEADERSHIP are changing. Maybe this is wishful thinking on my part, but I am a witness to the process, and offer my testimony. Women are taking on greater roles of leadership more frequently and more comfortably, usually to the great relief of everyone. This represents a more profound evolution of society than we may imagine. We are also learning more circular methods of sharing authority, beginning to understand consensus, and learning that more than being 'in charge', leadership is about guiding a visioning process, offering inspiration and doing what needs to be done. My hunch is that this bit of news has a lot to do with your life. What's most interesting is that the people for whom you are in a position of leadership are at least as strong, intelligent and powerful as you are, if not more so. But what you have is specialization, willingness, and a growth agenda that can only be fulfilled by your current mission. There is something very specific that you have to offer as well, which is to assist people in not feeling helpless in the wake of so much change. You will do this through your actions, you will do it through your words, but most of all, you will relate this to everyone around you through the simple act of understanding. | | Taurus (April 21-May 20) | | NO MATTER HOW you look at it, all relationships, personal or professional, are about exchange. All you get to decide is what you exchange, and why you are exchanging it. The 'what' may be some combination of love, honesty, pleasure, work, food, money, control, conflict, anger or jealousy. The 'why' may be (again) love, a creative impulse, a nurturing impulse, desire, fear, aggression or hostility. If you feel weak in your relationships, maybe it's because you don't quite know what you have to offer, or believe that it matters. How could you feel strong, or like you are a meaningful presence in someone's life and hence the world, unless you tangibly sensed your value? Alternately, feeling weak in relationships may reveal a lack of understanding of your motives. Can you move forward in life not knowing why you're doing it? You may fear being 'too honest' but on some level recognize that to tell the truth is, at once, to have yourself, and to give the gift of yourself. It will take some effort to get over the feeling that everyone and everything in this world represents a daunting power. But maybe in the course of time you'll discover that what, today, seems the most threatening will, tomorrow, be the most precious. | | Gemini (May 20-June 21) | | IN THE PAST four seasons, you got a sense of how you answer to direct confrontation, and probably witnessed some of your differing methods of responding. It is possible to meet like with like, that is, for example, anger with anger. It is possible to meet anger with compassion, or with reason. In the face of enormous change, it is possible to revert to structure and past ideas, or it is possible to embrace the challenge that the moment presents. But it would appear that no past structure, idea or internalized other person making voices and rules in your mind (mom, dad, etc.) will withstand the evolutionary necessity for you to adapt, evolve, and reach deeply into your feelings and your soul. You are being called past all of what you knew before; past all harsh self-judgments, flawed adaptation systems and unquestioned notions. The experience you will remember, in total, as 2001 was unduly harsh, and truly confused. I am sure you have your regrets about how you handled several situations, and it's clear that there were important lessons and gains you made. But where you have regrets, it is not too late to choose again, in many of them. It is not too late to adapt to your actual moment, and it is not too late to hold both yourself and your partners to high levels of communication and integrity. You are being called upon to react with an unusual degree of urgency to situations you've handled other ways in the past. You are being called upon to meet the world on equal terms. You are being summoned to think for yourself, and to take the risks of doing so, and to reap the gifts. This is a revised horoscope for Gemini. | | Cancer (June 21-July 22) | | IN OUR WORLD of so-called black and white, of success and failure, of give and take, of victory and defeat, the idea that anyone might gain without someone else losing is still very strange. Though our failure to see the simplicity and practicality of win-win situations is the equivalent of riding a bicycle with square wheels, I hope you don't mind purring across the countryside while others struggle with their tires meeting the ground at right angles. Actually moving is usually somewhat more dangerous than being stuck, sometimes. People would notice that you're different, for another thing, and there is little you can do to help them. But with a select few others, there's an alchemy taking shape, and you're likely to be feeling it now. Alchemy is a special kind of change, for example, converting lead to gold. It is impossible change -- a kind of miracle. All authentic miracles involve relationships. While you might be reticent to accept the fact that you're the source of a miracle, rest assured that you're not. You are, however, one ingredient without which miraculous transformations and learning processes would be impossible. What you experience is likely to be so reality-altering as to require keeping your feet on the ground as a very conscious act, and making a continuing effort to get to know people very well before you grant them power over you. | | Leo (July 22-Aug. 22) | | THIS IS A SERIOUS time in your life. I can almost hear you thinking that your experiments with fun were a sufficient failure to teach you that the only real way to handle your affairs is to get down to business. Even if you're being a bit pessimistic here, such a conclusion would be pretty good thinking. But I suggest you also keep in mind a definition of success, which is having fun with everything you do. There's a much more important issue involved with your attitude toward fun than just entertainment. What some call fun is how you access the superconscious and subconscious dimensions of your mind. It's possible right now, and tempting, to think you live to live solely in the practical world, where the laws of physics hold. But your encounters with what some call the spirit world, and another, more private space known as the unconscious, are now your richest source of both strength and resources, and of healing. There is a tremendous, necessary emphasis on healing as the next two years unfold. Structures need to mend, both in your emotional world and in your physical one; your body may be asking for special attention as well. But mostly, I think, it's your mind and ideas that are the real focus of need. I see you as having some rare and vital assistance available in this process, from someone willing to help, if you are willing to learn and grow, and most of all, to strive to live fully. | | Virgo (Aug. 22-Sep. 22) | | ONCE YOU WERE a child. Do you remember? Have you got any pictures of you from back then? Any artifacts, or, if you're truly blessed, any people around who can tell you some stories? Some people relate to the child they were as a different person than they are now, sometimes literally as if they were another being; others are right in touch with the little critter they once were, who exists right within you. As I write, I'm feeling how sad it is that more of us don't feel that kid in there, and it seems like the most important thing in the world to get in touch with that person, who is always trying to get in touch with you. The movement of Chiron, one of your guiding planets, into Capricorn, tells me that your relationship to the child within is becoming a much more tangible reality. Past years have been spent dealing with and repairing much of the emotional damage that was caused in earlier times. But this has cleared the way for you to feel safe being young again. Unlike during childhood, you have a lot more control over your environment, hard-won though it may have been recently. This security is likely to allow you to express far more of the emotions that a child can express, including curiosity, a sense of daring, anger, and an innocent yearning for experience: especially the deep experience of people you love and desire. | | Libra (Sep. 22-Oct. 23) | | IT IS RARE that we get to live out our ideals in any meaningful way. For many people, even having ideals is, well, idealistic, because we all know how messed up the world really is. Or do we? Are we any worse off today than we were during the crusades, or during plagues, or in the days before sanitation? Well, okay, today we live with enormous stress, and our own kinds of plagues, and a lot of fear, and not a lot of community. Community is what, in the past, allowed us to feel like we belonged on the planet. But mostly, in these days, we have a lot of problems on the personal level that we really could solve if we woke up from our trance for long enough to notice they bother us. I see you taking on the role of the awakener in the coming seasons. Sure, you do your share more than others do; it's perfectly true that Libra is born to notice beauty, which awakens the sleeping mind. Yet I speak of something different, of a mission, and it's not necessarily sensible, or free from risk. But you'll have help of a very special kind, in the form of a person capable of assisting you in making sure that your efforts have maximum effect and minimum risk. The most important thing about spreading any form of awareness is remaining awake yourself. I would dare say this is never easy, but take the help you are offered: help you will recognize when it arrives. | | Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 22) | | SCORPIO'S REPUTATION for control conceals the deeper fact that for you to do anything meaningful entails an act of surrender and commitment that few around you are capable of understanding. Even you may not be aware of the depth that this crisis can reach, and of course it's inflamed by how casual everyone around you seems to be, how intentionally shallow. Whether you take this as good news or not, you're not getting any simpler, but consider also that you're only growing stronger. In my view, 2002 has two dominant soul-development themes. One is bringing your conscious mind fully into the fold of your emotional, erotic and psychic process. This means becoming aware of processes you may now take for granted. So much that you experience you have been unable to express in cognitive or verbal terms. To gain this skill may not be comfortable, and it may even involve some very hard work. But please, fill notebooks, and learn to speak your mind. Second, and I know that I have said this somewhere along the line, it's vital that you see how powerful you are in your relationships. Seeing your power will free you from the necessity of being dominant. Strange as it seems, your power will just teach you that you are equal to those you say you love, while they learn that they're not quite as simple as they would like to be. | | Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 22) | | THERE ARE some people who have problems; most people have situations. You have situations that have been so demanding that you've been tempted to view them as problems. And while 2002 will not be 365 days at the park, you have survived the most wrenching changes, the most dramatic confrontations and the most shocking surprises. If you have, in hindsight, decided that any of this was made worse not because you weren't ready to change, but rather because you were unwilling, let that inspire you to pump the muscles of will and stretch the tendons of willingness. Whether you have noticed or not, the whole bizarre business of the past 12 months has been all about you becoming strong, powerful, decisive, conscious and desiring of freedom. The business of the next 12 months is going to be remembering what you have learned, holding yourself to what you have decided is true, and never for one day imagining that you are through growing. Rest, of course, would be very wise; you have not had much lately. My sense is that, if you keep honesty at the top of your agenda, you will discover many new resources within yourself, but more to the point, you will be able conjure the resources to meet any situation at any time. | | Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 20) | | PREPARE YOURSELF for the personal growth adventure of your life. No, make that the adventure of your life. Prepare for saying the words I EXIST with gusto, and then living out the promise as you turn the ignition key to the universe. In days of yore, your motto may have been "I subsist," or the groovier "I will survive." Neither is particularly daring, and at the top of my notes for your 2002 horoscope I have written: "To try, or to dare." For that is the question. The recent entry of Chiron into Capricorn represents the spontaneous development or re-emergence of your questing spirit: a time of experiencing everything but what you read in the books about how as a Capricorn you are very practical and a little dull and too careful. Chiron does not dare to be different as a luxury, or as a game. For Chiron, standing away from convention is the essence of life, and when a person is truly different, he or she must learn how to be different in peace, and hopefully, how to be different in style. In this light, I suggest you place having fun high on your list of priorities, and apply this to every activity or experience, whether it's on your agenda or not. Otherwise you run the risk of missing the adventure that an adventurous approach to life will no doubt provide you. You have other choices, and if you find yourself struggling, you can be pretty sure you've chosen the boring way to live. | | Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 19) | | THE TIME HAS ARRIVED to reevaluate the role of women in your life. I ask: are any of us capable of seeing women as our equals, whether we are male or female? Or are we always trapped in some kind of superiority/inferiority situation with the women around us? Can we even conceive of what it means to be equal to women, or to other women? These are some of the questions that you will have an opportunity to live through, as I read your chart. There is one woman, in particular, who will have a great deal to teach you about negotiation and the art of making a strategy for your life. She will teach you what is fair, and how to protect what is good, true and necessary. You are a principled person, a person of active ideas and conceptions for a better world. But circumstances are now likely to compel a higher level of action. This is not something any of us, much less you, can afford to do haphazardly. At the same time, there's an even greater risk in rigidity or coming from old values, because your most important resource is your creativity. No, make that your sensitivity. It's as though information is being beamed to you from a higher source, information that at times will be very specific. It won't arrive by email, and you won't get it from television. In fact, why not cut your television's wire? That will help you listen, in the moment, to your most precious soul. | | Pisces (Feb. 19-Mar. 20) | | IT COMES DOWN to one of two possibilities: making a rather conventional contribution in an unusual way, or a very unusual contribution in a somewhat conventional way. Given the choice, I'll take the second option, thank you. In your travels this year, I remind you that your reputation precedes you. Impeccable? Close enough for the 21st century. Your intentions are well known, if not fully understood, and intentions count more than anything right now, so work with them in a truly conscious way. Speaking of which, there's a game you can play in all facets of your life, personal, professional and otherwise, and it goes a little like this. Every problem actually represents an opportunity to gain and share. This is not my original philosophy, but its moment is come for you, and when anyone gets the hang of it, the feeling has a touch of Kitty Hawk to it. Each problem is like a door: a challenge, but really, the universe saying, create something here. Open yourself to an idea, a system, a connection; match a resource to a need; and then jump one level and turn the process to create profit or pleasure, but most of all, the power of knowledge The notion alone, made active in your mind, will induce a response from the cosmos. And frankly, it's a fine way to make use of a rare moment when luck is protecting you, at the same time that freedom is beckoning you, at the same time people are noticing you've got a bit of something special. | Back to Intro | Cover Page | Transits for 2002 Horoscopes | What's New | Index | Search | Updates  Space graphic above is 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. |
