Another Amazing Interview with Rachel Marco-Havens
Use this link if you’re listening on an iOS or mobile device.
The 2018 Planet Waves Annual by Eric, The Art of Becoming, is shaping up to be an exciting and information-packed reading. You may pre-order all 12 signs here (recommended), or choose your individual signs here.
Hey Aquarius: Saturn is newly in Capricorn, and later this spring your other ruling planet, Uranus, will enter Taurus. Pre-order your 2018-19 Aquarius Birthday Reading by Eric for a reliable guide to these changes and much more.
Dear Friend of Planet Waves:
This week’s Planet Waves FM program picks up my live Radio Kingston show from Sunday, while I continue to work on your Art of Becoming annual readings.
A friend just said to me the other day, “I’ve been reading your stuff for years, but I’ve never heard one of your broadcasts.”
My new Sunday night show is a perfect opportunity to hear me live (though the links in this letter will take you to the recording). As you may have heard, I’ve begun a program on Radio Kingston, called Planet Waves AM/FM. This is actual, live radio: broadcast locally, and around the world on the internet.
My guest this week is Rachel Marco-Havens, a popular guest whom you met on Planet Waves FM last year. I read samples of reader responses to my questions about the #MeToo movement, as well as take your calls on the air.
The way to listen is, at the appointed hour, to go to RadioKingston.org and push the play button. That’s it; no login, nothing. Please be courageous and call in! I announce the number on-air when we’re ready to take calls Sunday night. The show is also archived on Planet Waves FM.
This week’s music is provided by The Clash.
Next week, my guest will be Kasia Urbaniak, founder of The Academy training school for women, another popular Planet Waves FM guest whom you met last summer. You can read a little more about her latest work, including a more financially accessible women’s empowerment workshop, below.
With love,
Next Week’s Guest: Kasia Urbaniak
The New York Times and New York Magazine have both featured Kasia Urbaniak, whom you first met on Planet Waves FM last summer.
Kasia is a women’s empowerment trainer who skips the abstractions and uses a riding crop in her work. She teaches women how to have a clear yes and a clear no, teaching them the psychology of power, and how to remove their own inner blocks to their power.
From New York Magazine:
“Who has had unwanted sex?” Urbaniak asks the room. Nearly all the hands shoot up. “Yeah, see, what the fuck?” She says, shaking her head. “Annnndddd… Who has sucked a cock so you could get out of having sex?” she continues.
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Kasia Urbaniak.
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Most hands in the room dart back up, and a welcome ribbon of laughter ripples through the crowd. We could use a little levity. Urbaniak is a formidable presence, and when she first strode in, wearing thigh-high stiletto boots and a long black skirt with a slit, you could feel the room collectively hush.
Though Urbaniak hasn’t worked as a dominatrix full-time in years, she certainly still looks the part, and the philosophy, lingo, and general sense of playful eroticism that pervades everything the Academy does are all straight from the dungeon. Candelabras and dramatic bouquets of lilies are the de facto stage set; students are referred to as “mistresses” and in workshops sometimes dress in corsets and bondage gear; while teaching, Urbaniak wields a riding crop.
“You!” blurted out one young woman excitedly when Kasia asks why she’s here. There is a definite cult of personality thing going on between Urbaniak and many of her students, which is part of the appeal of the Academy. But her personal charisma (and the S&M vibe) serves as a gateway, not a crutch.
Listen to Eric’s first interview with Kasia here. You can read the New York Times interview here. We congratulate Kasia on her success.
Update: The Art of Becoming
Dear Friend of Planet Waves:
Sunday, I submitted the Libra chapter for The Art of Becoming. Five signs done, seven to go, most of the rest well begun. Pisces is next on the docket for completion.
Thank you for your patience, and thank you Amy for sending out little updates. I want to take the time to fill you in on how the project is coming out, what it is and why I’m running a few weeks late.
The Art of Becoming is your 2018 annual reading. This is a written work, which is directed at the Sun sign and the rising sign of my readers. I also consider it ethical to read signs of partners and relatives for insight into what they may be experiencing, at least as I read their astrology. The chapters seem to round out at around 5,500 to 6,000 words.
I don’t design them to be that long; that’s just how they’ve come out the past five years or so. I considered making them shorter, but it just was not happening.
A Personalized Astrology Textbook
Every year, as I write these chapters, I figure out that what I’m doing is writing a personalized astrology textbook. I describe transits, though I also delineate the signs, the houses and describe planets — both well known and newly discovered.
These are in the context of something called the solar chart: the chart used by horoscope writers, though presented in unusual detail.
I take the solar chart almost as far as it can go (I have developed a special gift for this). I put more into these readings than I’ve EVER learned from a natal chart reading I’ve paid for from a professional astrologer, for hundreds of dollars.
Each of these chapters is a distinct work, which then dovetails into the other chapters for a complete picture. While they cannot be comprehensive (there is just so much to cover), I reach for a practical thoroughness, and I cover some interesting nuances.
Because I’m using planets and combinations of planets that no other writer is working with, you get something that breaks new ground and has no equivalent. As you’re aware, I stick to human language rather than technical, and I define and describe any astrological points generously. My aim is to be understood.
Libra took about 12 hours of writing time. It will take the editors (Amanda Painter, Amy Elliott and Jessica Keet) several hours more to proofread and fact-check.
All This, and a Daily Horoscope
Usually the annual comes out around the second or third week of January. The reason I’m late this year involves a relatively new gig writing the horoscope for the New York Daily News. When I took the gig, I knew it would be challenging around annual time. [Sign up for your daily horoscopes here, no charge.]
Usually the way I handle a 70,000-word project dropped into the midst of a busy writing schedule is to keep coming back to it, when everything else is out of the way. That works well. However, now I have to finish everything else, then come back to the daily, then come back to the annual.
While I’m doing this, I want you to know I’m taking care of myself. I actually sleep (though I can keep odd hours), I play music daily, I read and I go to yoga. There’s no point getting hurt to provide people with astrology readings. That said, I work as efficiently as possible.
Since Friday, I’ve been working on the Libra reading. I just submitted that to our copy team. I have one more letter to write, and I’ll do some more work on Pisces, which is close to completion. I have several other signs started; I’m almost there.
This is a lot of writing, which means thinking and typing. I am not skimping on anyone or anything. The Daily News is getting a horoscope that is up to my quality standard, and you will get a reading that exceeds what you’ve had in the past.
These readings cover events that, at minimum, will be relevant for three years, and which in many ways reach into the next decade. Note — this is true of all of my past annual readings.
While you’re waiting, please check in with The Book of Your Life, which is open access, and the 2017 Midyear Reading, which introduces 2018 astrology (also open access).
You may pre-order The Art of Becoming: all 12 signs, or individual signs. We are offering all 12 for the cost of about three individual signs. We will be raising the price on individual signs tomorrow evening.
Thank you for being a customer and for trusting me as your astrologer.
With love,