I have a third share in the Netflix queue at my household, so I often end up watching films I would not ordinarily choose. Sometimes I sit dutifully on the couch, rationalizing that I am completing my film education. Despite its reputation as an Academy Award winner, it took me three nights to sit through The French Connection. But finally I swallowed the medicine, and it was good for me. Or at least I felt motivated to look at another director's chart.

This film's director is William Friedkin, who also directed The Exorcist. He has a challenging chart, which features an opposition to his Sun and Moon from Saturn, the planet of delay and hard work. However, he makes good use of it here, inundating the film with long periods of waiting.

Remember last month when I talked about the "gentle" rebirthing induced by a soft aspect from Pluto, lord of death and rebirth? Well, be prepared for FULL ASSAULT. This time around, Pluto is square the Full Moon. A square is a 90 degree angle; a lot of tension is generated because in this aspect the planets involved are working at cross-purposes. They do not integrate well; it's like crashing in an intersection with someone coming from a cross-street.

But first let's backtrack. Pisces, of course, is the most evolved sign of the zodiac. (It also tends to inflate the egos of those whose Sun inhabits its waters.) Pisces rules the desire to transcend the ego, to dissolve into the boundlessness of the universe. Pisces is the mystic, musician, alcoholic, homeless person, orphan. At its heights, Pisces is imaginative and empathic and at-one with God. At its lowest, Pisces escapes reality through altered substances or delusional beliefs, and cannot take care of herself because basic skills like paying the rent are beyond her capabilities.

At the opposite end of the zodiac at this Full Moon, the Virgo Sun is exactly conjunct (next to) Mercury, messenger of the gods. Mercury in Virgo wants to communicate about these ineffable Piscean emotions and unconscious images in a way that is articulate, precise and useful. However, in Virgo, Mercury may criticize Pisces for being too emotional and spending too much time watching DVDs.

Add the square from Pluto to all these planets, and issues of power, control, intensity, and betrayal get added to the mix. Pluto square Moon = intense emotions, being dragged into one's own underworld to dredge up all that icky Mom stuff we've been trying to repress since childhood. Pluto square Mercury concerns the power of language, the ability to persuade and manipulate through one's words. Coming from Sagittarius, this power may come from the religious or academic worlds. Pluto-Mercury-Moon ... this sounds like verbal abuse to me.

Finally, a sextile (60 degrees) to the Moon from Mars in Taurus adds a little boost of energy to this dynamic. Since the Sun, Mercury and Mars are all in Earth signs, we are less likely to get lost in outer space in our Piscean reveries, as there will be much to ground us.

This whole combination is most likely to affect those with planets in the last 10 degrees of the mutable signs (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces). Venus, the love planet, is at 24 Pisces in my chart--hopefully I won't be sleeping on the couch on the 17th.

With the Full Moon highlighting the Virgo Sun and Pisces Moon, I thought I'd share some stuff that's excited me recently. I'm a Pisces with Virgo Rising, so music and efficiency appeal to me.

Virgo Fun: Internet Organizer I found this cool, free web-based to-do list called Tada List, and a more detailed organizer called Backpack. The nifty aspect of these services is that when you add a to-do item, you don't have to wait for the whole web page to reload. In Backpack, you can easily create tables, and italicize or boldface words or phrases with a few easy keystrokes. You can share pages with friends, and subscribe to RSS feeds on Tada List if you want to see your todolist on My Yahoo! or another newsreader. You can also re-order list items via drag-and-drop in Backpack, which is a novelty for web interfaces.

Pisces Fun: Indie Rock! I don't listen to commercial radio unless I'm really angry and need to listen to twenty-year-olds screaming at the top of their lungs over ear-numbing guitar riffs. So I was excited to receive two complimentary issues of Paste Magazine as part of my Salon.com subscription. This magazine, which comes out every two months, includes a 20+ song CD sampler catering to indie rock, folk, singer-songwriter and Americana fans. I've gotten turned on to a lot of great artists that I would not have heard otherwise.

email: jeffreykishner@yahoo.com

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