Planet Waves for December 2023

This month's Planet Waves is open to everyone. I write one of the last literate horoscopes on the internet. The horoscope's "golden age" may be over other places, but it's alive and thriving here.

Greetings, please read. If you’re a Planet Waves Core Community member, Backstage Pass or Galaxy Pass holder, your horoscope, article and podcast are in your My Account area on the Planet Waves website. The weekly horoscope will be emailed separately from both Substack and the Planet Waves mail system. Thank you for your business and your trust. —efc

Fair St. Kingston, Thanksgiving Morning.

Planet Waves Monthly Readings for December 2023

By Eric Francis

Note to Readers — My monthly horoscopes are included with any Planet Waves subscription, here or on Substack. I am a Pisces and want to give it all away. I also know how many days these columns take to write and how many people get it from me to you. So I know you understand why this is a pay service, just like Starbucks, pizza, a new scarf and your phone. I am also keenly aware the dismal and illiterate state of astrology today. These are the same horoscopes you may remember from eOmega, Chronogram, and many other places. I’m sending out this month open access in case you forgot. And I’m in including a subscribe link in case you want to send back a little love in the form of helping me pay my editing and production team. thank you. — efc

ARIES – It’s time to remember the notion of a higher calling. Such is an invitation that seems to come from beyond you, but which is really coming from within you. This confusion of “from beyond” and “from within” is about taking ownership of one’s reality. We usually start life in possession of our consciousness; as children we are much more tuned in. Then, gradually, it is brought outside of us by conditioning. Paraphrasing Terence McKenna, many people become so alienated from their souls that when they meet it, they think it’s visiting from another star system. Your cosmic assignment this month is to tune in to your inner voice. That means listening to yourself, and in particular, listening for some clarity beneath all of the static of existence. Digital life is nearly all crackles and fuzz. You are unlikely to find it when glued to a screen. You might want to listen in total darkness. To succeed takes practice and learning. Yes, it’s possible to just tune in to your inner knowing. That also takes practice, which is mostly practicing trust in yourself. Follow your guidance, make a decision and see how it works out. Then review. Sometimes your spirit voice will speak first, but softly. Sometimes another aspect of your mind will speak, and you can ask for clarification. After a while, it becomes easier.

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TAURUS – Many who advocate what they think of as spiritual illumination make a distinction between pure love and “base” desire. And plenty fall for this dichotomy, often preyed upon by their own guilt and resentment. You might consider that they are forms of the same thing, equally blessed and holy, or not at all. To make physical hunger, need and yearning bad is to stunt spiritual development. In this way, the two are inextricably connected. It’s also true that one may lead to the other, and that they must exist in harmony rather than in a state of mutual exclusion. The cost we pay for this inner competitiveness is rarely counted — of constantly wanting to outdo ourselves, or an inner punishing quality for not living up to self-expectations. I’ve seen situations like this resolved through years of therapy, though usually it occurs in one significant revelation; one discovery that an approach to life needs to be changed. One consideration is the role of jealousy in your life. To what extent do you think you’ve addressed this, and to what extent do you require others to compensate for your insecurity? People will do what they can to help you feel assured, though that’s only a kind of layer placed over an inner situation where you know you would benefit from some real confidence. The basis of any relationship is spiritual, as is the basis of any collaboration.

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GEMINI – At the moment you have an enhanced ability to see where others are coming from; to grasp their point of view intuitively, on matters that might otherwise be difficult or impossible. It’s essential that you remain unassuming — that you not assume you’re correct — but rather use your observation as a way to facilitate discussion and be open to a viewpoint that might at first seem opposite to your own. Yet you may discover that there is deep harmony and a sense of shared mission. Here is the rub: no matter how much you may have in common, recognizing that you’re different people is critical. Gemini is often obsessed with the idea of “twin soul, twin flame.” That is not about another person, in truth; it’s about you knowing that some form of your reflection is visible anywhere. Or try this as a thought experiment: whoever you meet shows you an image of “you” or “not you.” You both raise awareness and take control by knowing that you have a choice; and a choice to face what you do not like. Even if you’re sure you know something from another person’s viewpoint, ask them about it. This is what I mean by unassuming; use your awareness as a hunch and be willing to be wrong. There are few experiences happier than realizing that what seemed like a harsh disagreement is really a few degrees of difference in viewpoint. And if you put those viewpoints together, you can get an image with depth and added relevance.

CANCER – You have the ability to get a lot done at this time of year. I was working with a Planet Waves tool called The Oracle the other night and came up with a horoscope from early 2017, some of which I will offer you here, then elaborate on: “Don't fall for the line that Americans (or whoever) work too much. For you, work is where you find your identity…Work is profoundly important to you, and consequently you must have something to do every day that is 1) not boring and 2) actually meaningful, relevant and helpful to others. The net result will be that you'll feel more solid in who you are; you will feel more real; you will live with purpose. More than overwork being an issue in our society, it's the lack of meaning that's the actual problem.” Uh, wow, how do they come up with this stuff? You know you’re doing something meaningful to you when the activity is for its own sake: it’s simply the thing to do. Can you imagine if more people got up every morning and proceeded with activity because it’s the thing to do, rather than out of obligation or paying the bills? Imagine if many of us had that one thing in common — that which is perceived to be the domain of the very wealthy but is not (they too are often driven by obligation). Well, this is how you’re designed to live. You are happiest when activity is connected to its meaning and its source. Don’t worry about anyone else — get up every day and proceed on the basis of what’s right and true.

Ashokan Reservoir. Photo by Eric Francis.

LEO – Children experience both their senses and their emotions with much greater intensity. This is partly because their egos are not so built up that everything they may feel is buried beneath the surface of so-called civilization. The people whom we call “artists” are the ones who are able to tap into those trapped wells of psychic energy and direct it in some conscious way back into the world within and around them. You’ve had plenty of pent-up feelings during the past month that the Sun (and other planets) have been in Scorpio. Now, it’s as if a portal has opened and suddenly you have the power to translate your dark intensity into something beautiful or even helpful. This is the gift of what some mistakenly call “creativity.” Sure, that’s a partial description, though it’s more accurate to say “how a person usually is when not blocked.” The thing about not being blocked is that the flow can really get going, and you need to be aware of that. Such can mess with your sense of control, or appropriateness, and this is invariably connected to what others might allegedly think. The ability to express yourself, or the ability to be alive in harmony with yourself (they are the same thing), is contingent on not projecting judgment onto others. Be alive within your own life. Give yourself room to get it out, whatever it is that you’re experiencing within. Let others deal with their own responses on their own terms, and grant yourself the simple freedom to be and exist on your own terms. This seems more radical than it is. Once you get there, there’s no turning back.

VIRGO – Nothing helps you feel safe or secure unless it has a spiritual basis. By that I mean no combination of money in the bank, the bills paid, food in the cupboard, and the people around you being solid, can add up to feeling safe. There always must be something else — something that allows you to feel a much larger reality. You do grounding in an unusual way: the Earth below you is one thing, though there must be a greater cosmos below that. I would say that for the next month or so, you cannot go too large on that “cosmos” thing. Questions that seem to have no answer are one of the greatest gifts of all, because they grant you the opportunity to relate consciously to the unknown. Even if you do this in small ways, you’re teaching yourself to do it in the greater ones. Questions don’t all need answers, and most of them are not really questions anyway. Slow down this process, and take care to treasure certain variables or unknowns that will become your greatest teachers. One of them is how you wound up on this planet, with your ability to ask questions about your existence and what it means. This rather significant matter is often skipped over entirely, and some petty matter is dropped in its place. People are falling over themselves these days to prove that this or that thing is “not true.” They have already made up their minds. That is the fallacy. The greatest unknown is within you. Take it slow.

LIBRA – You may go through a spell of assuming the worst is going to happen. It’s a big seller right now: all the cool kids are predicting the downfall of civilization. This is not what you would call a Zen-like orientation. It is, rather, being caught in the world of time and the world of maya (illusion) without imagining there is anything more. If you want to go beyond your fears, and meet others who are doing so, all that’s required is that you orient yourself on that thing more. Just a little. Allow some crack of light to open the possibility that there is daylight outside the walls you inhabit. Allow the scent of fresh air to remind you that there is a glorious atmosphere. Allow rain to teach you that there is water. And if you’re worried about impermanence, maybe browse through photos of ancient Egyptian monuments and ask yourself how it might have felt to be alive at the time they were built. Human existence is fragile but it is not frail. We who are here today have the ability to wreck the world around us, or to help hold it together. The results of your personal actions may seem insignificant, though the results of this choice are far from it. When you bring yourself into the meekest alignment with the Dharma — the living, nameless truth about existence, which can be acted upon but not described — beautiful things happen. Do what is meaningful to you. Read and write only what is genuine. Speak of beauty and you will see it appear before you.

Joe LaLima, the archetypal barber. Photo by Eric Francis.

SCORPIO – You will feel less edgy and less emotional if you recognize there is very little to cling to. The experience of existence as humans always rides along an uncertain edge, though this is an especially cliff-like time to be alive. Your moment holds distinct potentials that you’ve never had available. If you are feeling swallowed by uncertainty or like time is running out, ask yourself what you can do right now that has never been possible before. To sense that, you may need to give yourself to something that seems impossible or unlikely. You may need to dare in some way; this will confront you with limits that are purely conceptual. In a fairly short time, your modern ruling planet Pluto will be arriving in Aquarius, where most of your limited thought forms are contained. They exist as invisible patterns that were instilled in you by the speech, the emotions and the authority structure of your family of origin. During your most formative years, there was very little you could do about any of this. You could barely even shift your awareness, because the speech patterns and mental orientation of the people around you was so ridiculously strong. You are discovering that was an illusion, and further recognizing how fragile and uncertain they all were despite their bravado and know-it-all quality. At this stage of your life, a healthy outlook is something like this: “I’m not sure, but I want to know.” Then take up the full responsibility for finding out, and allow the quest itself to have most of the meaning you seek.

SAGITTARIUS – The Sun’s arrival in your sign comes with an invitation and a promise: you can put yourself back together. You can gather all the seeming parts of your existence and your purpose, scattered though they may be. Yet as you do this, there is one thing you’re likely to overlook; one thing you might just miss. It may be that your sense of something missing will drive your whole quest for completion. At the moment, there seem to be a great many people in the world who are terrified at any sense of there being an unknown. They do not like the news that institutions which have promised they have all the answers simply do not. The whole problem is the “all the answers” business. If you connect to your innate being, you will notice an inner cosmos so vast you know there are no answers to the most important questions. And you are likely to find out that this absence can only be answered by faith, and in that experience, there is no conflict. However, to appreciate this, you don’t need to sit on a mountaintop staring into your bellybutton (though that would teach you plenty). Your existence can be tuned to the “ritual de la habitual.” That offers the cosmic beauty in activities as ordinary as making breakfast or cleaning a room. If there exist any great mysteries at all, they may be present in anything you do, at any time you do it. True love may exist in every person because it can exist within you. Dare yourself to find out.

CAPRICORN – If you’re going to think about something a lot, make sure it’s a topic you can do something about. In the process of determining what is true and what is false, the matter of taking action must be a factor. That over which you are helpless, and whatever does not influence your life or that of your community, does not need much attention. This criterion will filter out most of the abstractions. If, rather, you invest your thoughts and your precious resources where you can make a difference, you will feel much better. You will know that you’re in self-creative mode rather than in reactive mode, or caught in a thought-loop. Pluto is now active in your chart and will be for the foreseeable future, and this is compelling of personal growth. Yet this is further described by the centaur Orius, which is the sigil of those who attempt the impossible. They go against long odds and move in the face of many disadvantages not because it’s trendy (such never is) or because they think they might succeed. They do so because they are guided by meaning, and connect this to action. Said another way, what you cannot connect to tangible options and choices is probably irrelevant, and not only that, a distraction of your precious intelligence. There is plenty that needs to be done; plenty calling on your sincere consideration. Time is moving faster than ever, and is being squandered more than ever. This is no luxury. The luxury you want is the ongoing satisfaction of doing the right thing.

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AQUARIUS – You may be walking the world feeling like “something is about to happen.” Well, it already is. Everything is in motion, in progress, and in its alignment original to this moment. Ask yourself: what is so? Make a map of your current situation: drawing it on a sheet of paper would be the most helpful. Who are you now? Describe this as a stand-alone, and also in the context of who you were in the past. You are going through a profound process of individuation. You are also seeking your wholeness and your sanity, which is rather individualistic these days: most people think they are content to be driven insane. But this is a cop-out. It’s the attitude, “Who cares, everything sucks.” Yet when you hear something like this, remember that it’s a statement of individual perspective. Anything you might say about the world, you can say about yourself. Therefore, make sure your descriptions of your personal reality both reflect the world you see, and have anchor points there. Nearly everyone may be some kind of grifter or conniver, but there are always exceptions. In many ways, you simply must be the one who falls outside the norms, the trends, and the aspiration to mediocrity. Being bold in your truth only seems unstable at first. Then you may discover that it’s the most solid place to live. Remember that your personal truth may be expressed in words, in deeds, and most significantly, in the place where they intersect. That place is a fulcrum, like the pivot on a telescope. One millimeter of change can make lightyears of difference.

PISCES – You will benefit from paying attention, at all times, to what is motivating you. It may not be obvious at first. You may need to consider the reality of your parents to study this: ask yourself how they would have responded to precisely the situation you are in. Could they have handled themselves at all? What do you think they might do? Your mother in particular shows up as a profound influence at this time. She has extensive unresolved emotional baggage, and much of that was passed along to you. Yet it’s not your karma; the grief and longing come from somewhere else. If this is true, then you don’t need the kind of palliatives that she did. You don’t need to be resigned to your life being one way and no other (she probably got over this). And what is missing for you is not what was missing for her. You have your own quest. And you’re very likely closer to connecting with yourself than she was at the time her impressions came to you. Today, the theme of your life is taking total responsibility for your existence. It’s about sorting out any variables on the basis of what helps you and what harms you. Keep asking this about everything: is it beneficial or not? Is this useful, or not? Do I want this, or not? Include in your consideration various forms of attachment. They do not all hinder; they do not all help. This includes your goals, of which one now stands out as the most important.

Another carwash shot.