Letter from Eric Francis
Monthly Horoscope for September 2006
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You may be feeling like it's time for a new job. Wider horizons are calling, perhaps painfully, but most definitely. Often we need to reach a limit to go beyond whatever familiar territory becomes enmeshed in our patterns of living. Even if rearranging your day-to-day affairs seems impossible right now, you have an opportunity to make an adjustment in the way you express or exert yourself in the place you call work. I suggest you look at how you use your energy; study the patterns; account for where your time goes, and what you actually accomplish. Notice how you feel about it. Because this promises to be such an incredibly busy and productive month, it's an interesting phase for a study. While you're at it, notice what you like to do the most, and what you set out to do first when you have several choices. Getting a new job is precisely the time to choose, so practice now.
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The great mystery is how you got into all of this, not how you're going to get out. Mystery has its place, but I assure you the answers about the past will be revealed. What counts most now is breaking free of the patterns of authority that have so completely characterized your life for so long. The struggle up until this point has had a subtle quality. You have brought emotion, feeling and faith to where there was previously only structured ideology. You have gradually brought a sense of focused individual identity to where there was previously a long line of inheritance that seemed to dictate who you were. Suddenly the process has come into focus. Who you are and who you are not have arrayed themselves in sufficient contrast that it's now possible to make tangible and indeed useful choices that allow you to put the information into action. You have done this before, but never so well.
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Clearing the emotional and psychological clutter will proceed much more smoothly if you think your actions through in a few steps, rather than plunge into the work. What happens over the next few weeks is really the result of a significantly longer process of reconstructing your identity to the point where you exist on equal terms with the world. As you sort through your ideas about yourself and what makes you feel safe, you will see that some contribute to that sense of equality; some go distinctly against it; and others help you work with the fact that at times people exist on different levels. What's different about the current phase of your life is a creative approach to these factors rather than one based on a sense of destiny or being trapped within a certain personality framework. That, in truth, was only a question of whether you felt safe walking around on the planet. Make up your mind about that and much else will seem obvious.
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Many developments point to this being a phase of your life characterized by an intellectual and creative peak. I could describe it a few ways; you're finding your voice; you're becoming clear about what ideas mean the most to you; you are beginning to make an impact; you are letting go of a destructive way of thinking and in its place something magnificently creative is finding its way into your reality. I suggest you leave no problem unsolved, and no situation unresolved. But more to the point, this is the time to enter new territory where your ideas are concerned. This will require discipline you may think you lack, as well as optimism, so that you can approach your work every day with a clear mind, faithful that you're making progress. Most of all, you need to stay in the present and allow the power of your mind to work through each mental challenge, and reap its rewards.
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The metaphor of Saturn in Leo, borrowing from the language of alchemy, is turning lead to gold. One is cheap and alluringly easy to work with, but has the unpleasant property of being dangerously toxic, particularly to the mind. The other is both expensive and difficult to locate, extract and refine, and also extremely challenging to work with -- but makes the ideal substance for everything from surgery to electronics to fine art. In considering the personal transformation from lead to gold going on within you, we have one of the great esoteric symbols, looking right at us, waiting to be explored and brought to life. At its essence, this is about contacting and expressing your most authentic self. Yet it's also about incorporating and integrating what you have long thought of as your most troubling personal trait, and turning this into your most valuable asset. The mystery of alchemy is very much alive right now, and the power is in your hands.
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The time has come to let go of an old grudge, grievance, or perpetual crisis. In the next year or two, you'll be doing plenty of releasing the past, dropping outdated personality traits and shedding various layers of thick skin that you've been collecting to protect your deep sensitivity. Yet something is stirring on the deeper layers of your psyche, and it would appear that you're going to begin this process from the inside out, working from the core to the surface. This is in truth more efficient than peeling back the layers from the outside. What develops over the next few weeks is the direct result of two factors: of your tapping into an energy source that is beyond your power to resist it; and consciously maintaining a sense of the direction in which you wish to guide your life. The image is less of a volcano and more of a turbine. You are developing the ability to bring fire under the power of spirit.
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Boundaries of all kinds are vitally important now. One involves your role in the lives of people you work with, and their role in yours. There is a dualism involved, and I suggest you be vigilant about being aware of when something is becoming personal that needs to be left outside that particular door. The other boundary is between your inner life and your public life, however you define public: you amongst your friends, or fulfilling your role in the community, or who you are with your children, or standing in front of a classroom. For now, this is a different "you" than the one who is experiencing a profound inner transformation. The fear you may be experiencing is fear being let go of. The pressure you may feel is the sensation of pressure being released. The chaos you may feel is the movement of the elements reforming in your psyche. For now, I suggest you keep that process to yourself, or leave it as a subject between you and your healers.
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One challenge in life is learning how to be someone other than who others expect you to be. Fear of being rejected by one's social set is perhaps the greatest inhibitor of individuality. Praise the gods that you're a Scorpio. If there's one thing you're not doing, it's being stuck, and nobody's going to hold you back now. Indeed, in this process, you will see that the people who love and respect you the most are the ones who are facilitating your growth, setting the best example, and cheering you on. If anyone at all exhibits jealousy or resists your progress, politely ask them to stop, and be prepared to walk away. More to the point, be prepared to walk away from a former version of yourself, and to embrace what may not, in truth, be a 'new you' but rather, a deep and ancient core of wisdom and self-mastery.
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You have, by now, noticed that you're evolving in the direction of a breakthrough to a new evolutionary stage, toward a kind of quantum leap. Lately, despite your definite successes in certain key areas of your life, it would seem that the deeper process is moving slowly, stuck or even going backwards. Perhaps it will mean something if I say this is not something you want to proceed too quickly. You are still integrating the last round of developments that came to a peak in the early spring. You still have plenty of material to work with, and when that far-out galactic energy surges again later in the year, you definitely want to have your house in order, and a good handle on all your worldly affairs. Worldly would count for anything attached to or associated with a person, place or thing. When your inner growth process reaches full fire later in the year, you want those things to be well taken care of.
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Your ruling planet Saturn has been doing two things lately. One is that it's been squared by Jupiter, which is leading you to expand your ambitions and sense of mission. At the same time, it's been involved in a long opposition to Neptune, which is compelling you to let go of many old ideas about yourself, and to see the great mystery lurking behind the facade of life. In your worldly efforts, you know you can do more; but the cosmic level is what has your attention now. Let your life in the coming weeks and months be the marriage of Heaven and Earth. Be the one who is doing the creator's work in the physical world. Look at and dance with the great mystery rather than getting caught up in its power and wonder. The gods are aware of your existence, your devotion and your willingness to help. They have faith in you; have some faith in them, and carry on.
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By now the process of quickening and undoing of the past has reached a peak in your life, and you're getting used to the fact that a bold adventure awaits you. Indeed, you are realizing your life the past year or so has been just such an adventure. The challenges are all starting to make sense; the odd way you've been feeling, cut loose from your usual rationales and many of your usual problems, is beginning to have some tangible meaning. I don't doubt you're also brewing some mixed feelings deep in there about all that's developed, including wondering whether some of the sacrifices you've made in recent years have been worth it. All progress comes at a cost, but remember you have not begun to reap the benefits of so much thought, effort and cooperation. For now, I suggest you take about 15 minutes each day and marvel at your successes. This will feed your faith in yourself for the many challenging achievements yet to come.
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You have not lived through any of this recently -- the challenges, the opportunities, and the sense of being in new territory. It would be fair to say that for a great many seasons, indeed, back into the prior millennium called the 1990s, you have co-existed with a certain unease that you could not quite name: perhaps the sense of a journey so long, you could not see where you were going, or how much territory you had covered. The place you're at now is a checkpoint. It is more than a review phase, though some time for considering the past would be well spent. But there is too much happening now to dwell on the past, and many factors are commanding you to stay precisely in the present, focused on your present needs, relationships and surroundings. You live in an environment not only of change, but of materialization. This is the moment to sculpt the great changes in your world -- the ones that set you free.
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Please check out Planet Waves Weekly while you're here, the only way to get Eric's weekly horoscopes. The weekly horoscopes include the 2006 annual pages, called Parallel Worlds. You can subscribe here or call Chelsea toll-free on (877) 453 8265. Thank you!
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