Planet Waves FM with Eric Francis

Tonight's Planet Waves FM considers the deeper themes associated with all this outing of sexual abuse. It's finally coming out: that's something to celebrate. Yet we also need to take this opening, understand what we've learned, and take responsibility for making the changes that need to be made.

In this week's edition of Planet Waves FM, I look at yet another senseless mass murder, though considering all the theories that you won't hear about on cable news or read in most coverage, in particular. I consider violence as a struggle for identity; the distortion of eros and thanatos; and the ways people have been driven out of their bodies by electric media.

This is the latest episode of a show named Progressive Spirit, hosted by John Shuck, which is on the Pacifica Network. It's the fifth in a series of podcasts on the 9/11 attacks. Today Shuck speaks with David Chandler, who showed that Building 7 fell at free fall; that is, the acceleration of gravity.

In this week's Planet Waves FM, I look at the arrest of all three Trump campaign officials, and read Manafort's chart. That happens after I look at the Full Moon chart, and squirm around looking for the right delineation of Ceres. The Full Moon squares Ceres, which I find to be the most elusive of the minor planets. Ceres is opposite the main-belt asteroid Magdalena. I return to the Full Moon in the last segment, in the context of sex and possession.

Tonight's Planet Waves FM starts off with astrology, though it ends somewhere else. Eric begins with a discussion of the Libra New Moon, which is a rather exciting specimen: it's exactly opposite Uranus, the planet of invention and revolution. It's also making a beautiful shape with centaur Pholus and the Galactic Core.

Before I get into the astrology of tonight's show, all focused on Jupiter in Scorpio and concentrated in the first segment, first a note from the spiritual department: this program is designed to leave you feeling good about life, and about your life. We live in troubled times. Planet Waves FM is a refuge and a healing space.

I look at the impact of mass shootings in the context of so much other difficult news, and consider this in the context of the extended nervous system known as the internet. We hear from Marshall McLuhan, who debunked the idea that “guns don't kill people, people kill people.” The program also includes a reading of the event chart.

Tonight I have for you some healing balm, in this world of threats of bombs. Here's something: at the moment, we are quite literally on the brink of nuclear war, or some nuclear exchange, with North Korea. This mutual insanity is being fueled by the noose closing in around Donald Trump, who is likely to act in ever-stranger, more insane ways as his crimes come closer to being exposed. What can we do about it? One thing we can start with is simply waking up.

In tonight's edition of Planet Waves FM, I focus exclusively on Trump's threat to wage nuclear war against North Korea. Putting the nuclear arsenal into Trump's hands was the whole problem with having him be president. Well, it was one of the problems, but it's the genuinely existential threat. Nobody should have the power to detonate a nuclear bomb, and certainly not this person, who casually asked the generals why nuclear bombs were not used more often.

In tonight's Planet Waves FM, I look at the recent disasters in our era of consequences. At the top of the show, I may have over-promised on the astrology, committing to a couple of charts that I don't read out loud, though which I have in mind. I look closely at the astrology of our moment, and recent events as an outgrowth or physical representation of the eclipse. In that vein, here's a link to the Dale O'Brien talk that I mention, about American eclipses. I also give a talk on the concepts “liberal” and “conservative,” and how these notions are completely convoluted and even reversed at this time.

Tonight's program is a tribute to Walter Becker of Steely Dan, who died at age 67 on Sunday. The show is rich with my personal Steely Dan favorites, and I read his chart as well. Also, this evening we have a live event on Planet Waves FM, which will start at 6 pm on our live stream. You can tune in to the stream whenever you feel like it (we run nonstop Vision Quest recordings).

In tonight's edition of Planet Waves FM, I look closely at the last days of Mercury retrograde, which end with a kind of revival of the Aug. 21 total eclipse of the Sun. Mercury makes a conjunction to Mars, then stations direct, in the eclipse degree — which is close to the president's rising degree. That means a whole new kind of mishegas is on its way. Get ready.

Most of this week's program is Sunday night's invocation of the total eclipse. All of us at Planet Waves have spent months explaining the event from spiritual and psychological perspectives, in language. By the end, the only way to express things was in rhythm and tone.

In tonight's edition of Planet Waves FM, I survey the world as we approach Monday's total solar eclipse. However, we also travel back in time to August 1999, when a comparable event was approaching: the infamous grand cross total solar eclipse of Aug. 11 that year.

Tonight's Planet Waves FM visits the astrology between the eclipses, which includes Mercury stationing retrograde, many aspects involving asteroid goddesses (especially Mercury conjunct Vesta). We visit the Slutty Sunday party at Oasis in midtown Manhattan, and hear from The Doors — B-sides from LA Woman.