The big deal in the astrological blogosphere of late has been the Jupiter/Neptune/Chiron conjunction in Aquarius, which was exactly a few days ago. It will exact twice more in the latter half of this year.

There are plenty of things this can symbolize, and of course we can get much, much, MUCH greater insight into what this means for you personally by looking at where this triple conjunction falls in your birth chart, and what other planets it may be aspecting. From a collective perspective, though, we may see an expansion (Jupiter) of idealism (Neptune) pertaining to healing (Chiron) and humanitarian causes (Aquarius). In sum, the question of the moment might be: how can you change the world?

Well, as I noted in my highly controversial blog post in which I openly called for an end to all charities, the best way to change the world is to go shopping.

The key, of course, is to shop wisely.

Most people want to do this, but there are two problems: convenience and information. As an example, I buy stuff and shop at places that I know are explicitly against my values (i.e. companies run with no integrity and who possess no real interest in being of use to their customers), but I do so because to do otherwise is not convenient enough, and because I lack the necessary information on who's legit and who isn't.

Of course, as is the case with so many of the world's problems, the Internet is here to save the day.

For instance, while I generally am not a beliver in Twitter, one thing I have gotten out of it that I really like is asking people about brands. I'll be at my local grocery store, and will see a brand that claims to be organic -- but that's not enough for me to trust them, especially with food companies lobbying to undermine the credibility of USDA organic certification. So I'll ask on Twitter, often to get delightfully useful and thoughtful responses -- the kind of responses that can restore your faith in humanity.

With my business, our long-term plan is to create a whole bunch of niche social networks, primarily for digital publishers (i.e. writers, bloggers, videographers, musicians, photographers, etc), which will include a store with its own currency. The store contains products sold by trusted members of the community -- members who have influence. "Return on influence," as I like to call it, and it's a key concept for selling things in a world where media is free.

On my trading site, where all the business concepts we discuss are deployed, we are allowing trusted members to set up their own stores. The end goal, of course, is to tie all the trusted merchants in our network together to create a global storefront. Honest goods, bought and sold with honest money. Global problems solved!

The song for the post is "Heal the World" by Michael Jackson. Aside from the serious potential of him being a pedophile, I like Michael and his music.