Monday, June 13 Good Morning America, Good Afternoon England, Good Evening Oz, Dear Friends, Soon, I'll be passing the blog back to Jude, to continue. My travels have taken me through quite a few lands and quite a few cities lately, and she's been doing us all a great service with her ideas and her perspectives. It's always fun to see writing that's not my own prominently featured on Planet Waves; this way I get to have as much fun as you do reading the site. We got a comment over the weekend that the blog has been a bit on the political side. That was my intention in selecting Jude to stand in. But she's not just political. She is someone coming from a rare perspective who can see through the politics; she can see through the religious rhetoric that has taken over our world, and she can see through human nature and speak right to our better angel. We live in political times. It is unfortunate, in one respect, and utterly necessary in another. There is nothing we can do about the fact of living in a political world, except of course for enjoy our lives. Yet when that becomes negligent, when our lives cost others everything, and when America, as "the world's greatest nation," refuses to take the greater share of the responsibility for integrity, we have big problems. And we're getting there. The very issue is how big, and that is precisely what we don't want to think about. Problems, however, portend solutions, and one cannot solve a problem we can't define. On Planet Waves, whether we're talking about astrology, self-help, sexuality, politics or culture, we aim the discussion inward, to the place we can make a difference. This is as true of my horoscopes as it is of Jude's commentaries on world affairs. We are sailing straight into some rather political astrology in the next week or so. Tomorrow is first quarter Moon (the Moon is now in early Virgo, heading for a sqare to the Sun in late Gemini) and when both of these planets arrive on the Cancer-Capricorn axis, we're likely to witness some interesting changes. But Cancer and Capricorn are such inward signs, oriented on family, the home, our sense of security and yes, our relationship to society. Astrology is ALL about understanding how vast, impersonal forces interact with us as individuals. And it's about (the same thing...) how we interact with the world in which we live. -- Lately I've taken to doing much of my interaction visually, through photography. Tracy and I have been on a creative rampge with the photo gallery; it's very nearly doubled in scope over the weekend, and a lot of new Montreal and Paris shots have been added. Many more are to come, from Amsterdam as well, and my next city, Toronto -- I just have to write the captions (and in the case of Toronto, get there). I know we have not posted much in the way of articles to the free side of Planet Waves (here). But pictures paint thousands and thousands of words -- have a look. Planet Waves Weekly, our premium pay site, also continues, twice weekly, with the Friday newsletter and the Monday bonus horoscope. In my essays, I've been focusing on Watergate the past two weeks, though I may interrupt that series for a Friday discussion of the above mentioned Full Moon with the asteroids, which is a rather amazing chart in any event, but particularly when you put it in Washington, DC. Astrology students might know what I mean when I say that Uranus is rising at the moment the Moon is full. So we have a lot of planets gathered around the cardinal points (early Aries, Cancer, Libra and Cap) and then Uranus is in the ascendant in the US capital. Keep your ears perked. Keep your eyes on the stars. And make sure you give http://truthout.org a look at least once a day. I'll be in touch again soon. Love from Montreal QC Eric F.