“Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where fear grows great, great love grows there.”
Shakespeare’s Hamlet [III.ii]
It was a trick a I learned a long time ago, always throw a few sappy words in there to confuse the issues at hand.
Aries: You have a choice, you can look at the wonderful effect of Mars on your marigolds, or you can worry about what folks are thinking about you. I’d rather quite worrying about the little mercurial planet at this point. Can’t argue with Mr. Mercury, and Mr. Mars is being too nice to you. Or he’s supposed to be nice to you. He is the very picture of vitality. He brings life, energy, drive, the old get up and go, and some other things I can’t think of right now. But if you make an effort to harness this drive, if you make concerted effort to put this wonderful drive you’ve got, if make this work for you, you’ll find you can get a lot done. Now the trick, because Mercury is up to his tricks, so the trick is to realize that little things are going to fall apart. But if you can keep plugging along with that Martian drive, you’ll do okay. Be like your namesake, the Aries guy. Fiery. Swift. Always looking forward. In fact, as near as I can tell, that’s the clue right now — keep looking forward. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. See if this doesn’t help you get up, get out and get motivated. or something like that. Look: Mercury will screw up little things, just keep looking at the big picture, and you’ll be fine.
Taurus: The nice thing about astrology is that it can provide convenient excuses for certain lapses in memory. Little idiosyncrasies can be excused as a fluke in the orbit of some planets. Leastways, that sort of excuse works around here. More than once, I’ve had to be nice and easy on an employee (no names) because they had a viable, verifiable excuse. “Man, it’s that Saturn thing, you know….” Yeah, I know. Or, like right now, “Look, I set my alarm, but the darn thing didn’t go off. No, I swear. Yes, I was out kind of late last night, but no, I wasn’t drinking heavily or anything….” See, as long as Mercury is retrograde, even if that particular employee smells like she’s still leaking fumes from last night’s whiskey bottle, as an astrology based business, we have to be understanding. Now, you might not work in place where folks are so understanding. Matter of fact, I’m willing to bet your boss won’t abide by the same excuses I get to listen. Matter of fact, your boss, unless he or she is Taurus, will be disinclined to believe just about anything you say right now. Doesn’t matter how nice you make it sound, to them, it just sound sound like you’re telling the truth. Armed with this knowledge, what are you going to do? I’d try to stick the facts, nothing but the facts, and no astrology stories about how Mercury is wreaking havoc with your alarm clock. I doubt such tales will work anywhere but here.
Gemini: I need some sort of calming drug to give to my Gemini friends. I was thinking something along the lines of an opiate, strongest dose available. While this won’t solve any problems, it will quiet the infernal racket coming from the Gemini slice of the sky. I mean to tell you, it’s been rough around here. The things I’ve had to listen to, just because I was willing to try and help the Gemini’s. Bluntly put, it’s just not a pretty sight. Nothing I can say, no amount of calming influence, no matter what I do, it just doesn’t seem to help any. All the poor little Gemini folks all have their collective tails in a dither. There’s really a stronger expression I would choose at a time like this, but the rating board would bounce it back to me. And that’s just like the problems the Gemini’s are having, they need to cuss a bit, and no one seems to be listening to their problems. We just don’t understand how rough it is in Gemini land. Look at it this way, you don’t have to hold on much longer, it’s going to get better Real Soon Now. (Right, and we’ve heard that expression before.)
Cancer: You and me, we’ve been through this before. It’s a simple question, and there’s a simple solution. See: it’s like this. I mean, it’s like this. Old lovers tend to resurface when Mercury goes backwards, and that’s kind of the issue at hand right here. The best example I heard, came from a client, “Yeah, I heard from my ex-husband, sure, and he’s in prison for wire fraud. doing a ten year stretch in the Federal pen.” Now look at it this way: the ex did show up. And, what makes this particular ex even more attractive now is you know exactly where he is on Saturday night. Okay, so it doesn’t all work out, but it looks like I was right. More or less. Mercury has a way of tantalizing us like this. Reminds me of another scenario, “Yes, I got married, and you were right, I’m miserable now.” So when the old flame shows up, contacts you, or, at least sends out some kind of smoke signal, at least acknowledge their presence. Doesn’t mean you have to do anything. But you’re bound to hear from at least one ex in the next few days, probably right after the weekend. I just hope yours turns out better than mine: “Who was that girl? Why did she kiss you like that, huh? I hope you’re not planning on anything tonight, Mr. Astrologer.”
Leo: Some days, it just feels like everyone is out to get you. If you were an average person, you might be a little paranoid about this. Be grateful you’re a Leo, and therefore, not average. Yes, you’re definitely a cut above the rest. But right now, you are getting more than your fair share of attention, and not all of this attention is necessarily good. Now, you can struggle, get freaked out and worried about this all, or you can do something a little different, you can act like you’re supposed to be getting all this attention, you can act like this is the way it’s supposed to be, and you can pretend like you relish all the lavish attention you’re getting right now. “Hey buddy, I’m watching you,” a uniformed member of the established law enforcement community once told me. Most folks would be worried. I think I was at the time, but these days, it’s almost a point of pride. “You’re watching me? How cool is that. Wow.” Follow my lead on this one, if you like, as long as you might be watched, why not take center stage, as it rightfully belongs to you anyway?
Virgo: The new year was supposed to be a fresh start to all the old problems. Some of them, too, like last year’s financial mess, those are supposed to be over with and done. You get to start the year with a clean slate. Things are supposedly good, right? Right. I mean, wrong, that’s right. The little Mercury thing is playing greater than usual havoc with some of the stuff you’re supposed to be doing for work right now. It’s not going on schedule, it’s not going smoothly, and it’s not going the way you keep telling folks it should go. One of the biggest reasons it’s not going the way you want it to go is because they (boss, employer, employee, contract person, customer, client) don’t seem to be listening the way they should be. If they would only hear what you’re saying, then there wouldn’t be this big mess. You know that. I know that. Unfortunately, no one else seems to notice. So if they [see list above] are not listening, not hearing, not adhering to your perfect Virgo directions, then don’t panic. It will take a while, like, in about two weeks, they [that list again] will come back and say, “You know, you were perfectly right when….”
Libra: Talk about fun things going on around you! Talk about the party like atmosphere you’re enjoying! Talk about Mr. Mercury and his evil hijinx! Two out of three is not bad odds, not by any gambler’s guess. And I estimate you have two out of three going on, if not all three. That works out well for you. Then there’s this Mars thing going on, and I don’t have high hopes about that. Personally, I’ve made a friend out of MArs, and I’ve learned to work with his energy. And there’s the oddest little echo in here, and it’s like you’re going back over some old ground that you thought we’d already covered before. Yes, there’s that, but see: your attitude ought to be pretty good by now. You know the drill and the routine with Mercury going backwards, and it’s a relatively small planet, and it can’t use that much mayhem, and except for a precious few individuals, the Mars thing is really going pretty good. There will be one or two Libra’s I’ll hear from, but other than that, this is a good time to play. Play hard. Play like you mean it. Play as if it were serious work. Recreation, around here, is serious work. Take your merriment in a serious way.
Scorpio: Ma Wetzel is just beside herself right, which, if you consider the image, is sort of amusing as there she is, standing right beside where she’s standing. Don’t knock the idea, if anyone can do it, I’m sure she’s the one. But it’s the Scorpio side of here that is just about put out with all this Mercury Retrograde stuff. It’s been one thing, right after another, and modesty, as well as a sense of self preservation, forbids me from recording all the events. But you ge the idea. It’s not exactly a happy time. It’s not a sad time, no, that’s not it at all, but most of the good Scorpio people I know, Ma Wetzel included, they all just don’t seem to have a clue about what’s going on. Or they do have a clue, it’s just the rest of the people on the planet don’t seem to be attentively listening to heir Scorpio selves the way we should be. And that’s trouble. If folks would just listen a little more carefully to what the Scorpio’s are saying, then there would be a lot less trouble. Regretfully, no one seems to be paying the right attention to Scorpio, hence the image of being beside yourself. Can’t help with that, but I’ll try to listen.
Sagittarius: It certainly is an odd way to start out the year, that’s for sure. It gets off to a weird start, and from where I’m sitting right now, it doesn’t look like it’s going to get any easier. Or any less strange, for that matter. Just might as well resign our Sagittarius selves to a few simple facts. It’s an odd way to start the new year. It’s an odd time. People are acting strangely. Did I mention Mercury was retrograde? And he’s retrograde in position which promises lots of problems with our usually good ability to cope. So the old Sagittarius coping mechanisms might not work as well as they usually do. That’s a serious problem. Those forms of escape that we rely upon, those little things which we count on being there for us, those things might not be working the way we want them to. There’s also the oddest little boost which comes along, too, like a guy with jumper cables just when we need it the most, Sunday night. You feel like you’re stranded at the all night drive in, where no one is driving in,seeing as how it’s sunday night and all, and then, out of the dark, there’s a guy. “So you need a jump start? Here, let me help.” Hey, we could all use a little jump now and then.
Capricorn: I’ve got this one Capricorn friend, and I’m not naming names. Anyway, she got around to hiring a maid service to clean her place. It just made more sense. Her time is valuable, as is every Capricorn’s, and sometimes, it is just too much trouble to attempt to handle all the chores yourself. But you have to be careful about this sort of thing. See: I was over there the other day, and she was straightening the place up so it would be clean before the cleaning service got there. Reminds me of a Virgo who used to make the bed in the hotel room, so the room service wouldn’t have to do it. You do have some stuff at home which requires your attention. But if you’re hiring this out, why do you need to clean the place up before the people who are going to clean, why do you have to do this before they ever arrive? Isn’t that, like, doing their work for them? See how this gets stuck in loop, and you can never get ahead? Look: if you’re hiring the job out, let the experts do what they’re good at.
Aquarius: Happy Birthday, dear Aquarius. You know which one you are. And this scope is less about this weekend, and more about the beginning of next week, when all sorts of crazy things start to happen in your chart. “Would that be crazy fun, or would that be bad crazy?” is the perennial question. And you know what? It sort of depends on how you want to work with what comes along. I tend to regard a lot of this “crazy” as in “fun crazy,” you know, wild and zany, and who knows what those crazy kids will come up with next. But not everyone likes that sort of wackiness. To some more saturnine Aquarius types, when everything is just plain not going according to plan, then it is considered bad crazy instead of fun crazy. As you can tell, it’s a matter of perceptive. It’s not exactly a stable time, and most people are inclined to make promises that they have no earthly idea how they will fulfill this promise they made to the nice, fine, decent Aquarius. Now, as long as you’re aware that most of these are empty promises, you’re a little better off. And you have to admit, in the moment, the spirit of the wish is good. The intention of the person making the promise is good, just don’t expect it to be fulfilled. Your rational, Aquarius brain knew that way back then, and it hasn’t changed. So enjoy the various permutations and twists of fate, and pretend like you intended this to be fun.
Pisces: A few years ago, this was considered a major alignment, to have a lot of planets in one sign. These days, though, it’s getting more commonplace, or so it seems. The only problem with this week is the stack of planets in the sign that comes right before Pisces. This creates a degree of tension. And I’ve said it before, there is such a thing as good tension, like that way you feel right before the first kiss. Or the tension on a fishing line when you you’re about to reel in a big one. To my mind, the difference isn’t that great, the kiss or the fish. But I’m not kissing any fish right now. Pisces, though, that’s a different kettle of fish. So there’s this tension floating around in the sign that’s right in front of you. And then there’s this pesky little Mercury thing going on. What to do? How about nothing? This weekend, next week, while everyone else is all freaked out about this, that or the other, while everyone else is busy with all kinds of relatively minor concerns, why bother to let this stuff get to you? That tension you feel? Enjoy it. It’s like that first kiss. Or a fish on the line. I just hope you’re not the fish on the line.
