What I miss the most since Facebook turned the internet into rage bait —
is community discussion. These days it seems like too much to ask. Readers are reactive more than responsive. Make people angry and they comment. Offer love and food for thought and they go silent...
Chiron enters Taurus in a few hours.
Good morning,
I am here to ask your participation in the article we published last evening (An Avalanche of Dearth). Please share your thoughts, reflections, ideas, questions and observations. Anything will do.
It was one of those pieces where I finsihed and thought: how ever did I do that in one day (early Wednesday morning to early Thursday morning)? Today, most people are writing with “prompts.” I still write one letter, and one idea, at a time. (With a copy team that cleans up my text fast — Elie, Alison, Lisa and Natalie — they are part of what your subscription fee gets you: a print-styled copy process.)
While the writing took a day (with much else going on, including going to town, gabbing at the Yellow Deli for half an hour, seeing a water rescue on the Hudson River, and then going back for the Farmers’ Market), my investigation and study go back 11 years. That 11 years is the ‘‘observation arc” (a term from minor planet astronomy) of my deep work with the writing and lectures of Marshall McLuhan, and discussions with his family — specifically to get a handle on the environmental and psychic effect of the internet.
One of the worst things the later internet has done to Planet Waves was first to siphon all our comments to Facebook, then shut down the discussion (I mean the 100-commnt discussion on many articles). Substack has recently changed its algoritum and that too has cut down the discussion.
We don’t need to let these systems run our minds or our learning process.
You did not get your first email address with a plan of becoming less articulate or to surrender your literacy. I did not go onto the internet to become a puppet or propagandist. I am here to be a writer and artist.
I remain sufficiently undamaged that I can write a retrospective like the one below with little effort (because I consciously lived through every aspect and every event).
I trust you enough to share my real ideas, uncensored, and this article has plenty — including the astrological, financial and technical back story of “covid.” I know you want more than astrobabyfood that leaves Eris out of the Chiron-Eris conjunction and then has no clue what to say about Chiron!
And I know that rage bait ain’t your thing. I am writing to an audience mostly of tribal elders — that is, women and men of around 50 or above. That is special.
Therefore, I am here to summon your wisdom. I want to hear from you and so the rest of us. Perhaps down your “phone,” open your laptop, and write one paragraph for the Planet Waves community. Or sure, type with your thumbs. It’s still language.
Yeah we’re all in a big hurry to get through the day. To that, we lose our lives, and leave our minds and senses behind.
Thank you. Good morning. Today is a big day. I’ll have Planet Waves FM for you tonight.
Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ —
PS — The Aries horoscope for this week applies to all of us.
ARIES — Chiron’s entry into Taurus is about getting your priorities in order. In the current version of the world, where nothing means anything and everything happens at the same time and nothing seems to have actual value, that is going to be a radical experience. It may feel linear, and it is. The word priority means establishing, What comes first? What comes second? Much of the confusion we live with can be traced to not having made such decisions. And they are far beyond what a computer script can handle; they cannot be understood by some kind of synthetic “intelligence” device. In the absence of any such evaluation, it may seem like a good idea to be advised to pay the electric bill. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I mean deciding what matters to you on a level comparable to oxygen.
An Avalanche of Dearth
Our in-house Core, Astrology and Galaxy subscribers may find this article at My Account.
Family Constellations: A self-therapy tool from Planet Waves
Now underway: Family Constellations — 2026 Midyear Astrology by Eric Francis and many collaborators.
There is so much to unpack here. At 75 yrs. I have seen a lot go down. I stand in utter amazement at the complexity and as you say, bombardment of societal influence on personal space. This is a choice "of convenience" that continues to infiltrate the values of personal autonamy. The presence and growing awareness of outer planetary discovery I believe is a growing awareness of contextual time. A seemingly juxtaposition to this digital disruption of interior space. Your point of Chiron entering a feminine vibration can be a signaling feedback to ground the spiraling yang energy. The revisioning potential of fire and air in the slower moving planetary array along with the kuiper and ourt cloud expansion of awareness is the future, of which I represent a past struggling to maintain a center in this tsunami of information overload. My suspension and growing awareness of the billionaire class and their driving ambition to control the world if nothing else is a lesson in deeper awareness of forces that managed to hide from general exposure. They have continued to be steps ahead as they steer world economies. The quickness of the pace leaves little time to catch a breath of perspective. This is intentional as the story lines diverge in seemingly diverse directions but the subplot is domination. Thx for the prodding!
Yes. I went to Fb for discussion. There is still some. Nonetheless I completely agree (though it's by no means just Fb but also 99% of the time in 'real life') that so many people don't understand the gulf between a response and a reaction.