“Now, Mars, I prithee make us quick in work,/That smoking sword may march from hence/To help our fielded friends.”
Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Coriolanus (I.iv.10-3)
Mars is headed into retrograde, so look at this like they do a traffic report. Which, oddly enough, reminded me of a recent trip to the Gulf Coast, and during that trip, we hit a little town at rush hour, 5 PM, straight up. Three cars at the stop sign.
Aries: It’s like listening to the traffic report, the eye-in-the-sky overhead, only that one channel keeps reporting that there’s a major stoppage of traffic, for some unknown reason, right in front of your personal Aries address. You change channels, on the radio, as you’re driving home, and again, the new traffic announcer comes on with your home address. That’s where the problem is! How can this be? For all intents and purposes, Mr. Mars is stationary. As long a he’s not moving much, you’re going to find that the traffic jams in life all seem to occur within three blocks — or less — of your own Aries domicile. Plan accordingly.
Taurus: So, you’re on your way to the office, and you’re idly listening to the radio, the traffic report. “The freeway is a parking lot while the construction is ongoing.” Same report, different city, doesn’t matter. So you decide it would be easier, safer, and probably faster to hit some surface streets, eschew the freeway, which is clogged like a toilet. Too bad the traffic reporter can’t just get a traffic plunger and fix the problems. So there you are motoring along on the surface streets, and up ahead, just as you get situated in the middle lane, there’s a traffic signal that’s flashing yellow. Cars from one long line advance slowly, then stop. After you get stuck in that line of traffic? That’s when the radio report comes in that the signal’s out, and that’s not a good alternative route. The way this next few days works out? You’re probably going to get the information you’re looking for, the news that you need, about five or ten minutes too late. Bet on it.
Gemini: One Gemini DJ was explaining how the traffic reports really work. It’s nothing more than a cube farm, none of these phone-in reporters are really in a traffic helicopter. The sounds in the background are dubbed in to make it appear authentic. The traffic reporters are just reading from the up-to-the-minute reports as the news scrolls across the screen. Southbound expressway? Stop and go from up north to south of town. East bound? Same deal, different direction. West bound? Not much better, stopped, in places, in fact. North bound? That’s got some major blockages, too. Doesn’t matter which direction you want to take, seems like, during the Gemini rush hour, the traffic is stopped. From the mix-master to downtown then out to the suburbs. Or the reverse, whatever works. Or doesn’t work. Best solution? Pull over and let traffic thin out. Find yourself a nice, comfortable Gemini resting place. I’m thinking a happy hour near your disembarkation point is best. Even then, though, you’ll find that the traffic to get to the bar is pretty heavy. Some days, you just can’t argue with traffic.
Cancer: It’s slow going on the Cancer expressway. Looks like you’re headed home, or maybe out to eat, or some other social engagement, but it looks like the freeway of life has some stop and go traffic. More of the stop kind, too, less of the go traffic. It’s like there’s been a fender bender on the side of the road, and here you are, slowing down for something that you have no control over. What’s going to make this worse? That traffic problem? It’s on the other side of the freeway of life, on the far side, pulled over to the shoulder, but still folks have to slow down and gawk. Here’s the hint: keep your Cancer eyes on the car in front of you and the truck behind you. I want you to be prepared. Looking at the source of the trouble? You can’t let your attention waiver for even a moment. What’s infuriating? The problem isn’t in your lane. It isn’t even on your side of the expressway. Seems like all the traffic comes grinding to halt to because there’s a cop car with its lights flashing, on the other side of the freeway. In other words, there is no excuse for the traffic to all slow down, much less, come to halt. Which is why I’m suggesting you make sure to keep your eyes on the road, the guy in front, the guy behind.
Leo: “Looks like traffic’s backed up on the interstate, and the loop looks crowded too, with stop and go traffic from the bridge to the center of town, plus northbound arteries are clogged, and the wreck has been moved off to the side, but there’s still some congestion in town.” It’s just slow going in the Land of Leo. The Leo expressway is anything but an express. The traffic problems have a simple solution, though: don’t drive. Sounds good. Doesn’t always work in the real world, but then, it’s as apt an answer as any. Doesn’t matter where you’re driving to, the other drivers are going to present you with a problem. Problems, even. Easiest way to avoid those difficulties? Don’t drive. Might not actually be a driving situation, might be a different kind of traffic, but there’s an easy way around this problem: don’t engage. If the problem is the other drivers? Let someone else do the driving, let some one else get all worked up over a traffic problem that no one has any power over.
Virgo: Dallas (Texas) has a rather long tollway. Stretches into two different counties, if I recall correctly, and I might not. The highway department, the folks responsible for collecting and administering the tollway? They added cameras and such to help catch folks who didn’t pay the toll at the various collection points. In fact, they added some neat little radio/magnetic/atomic powered Toll Tags. Just slow down, and the little remote sensor automatically bills the credit card on file for the amount. The problem? You’re stuck in Dallas traffic, and you see an opening, a lane, right next to your Virgo self, and you think, “(Something) this, I’m just hopping over there, and zooming past everyone.” Cool idea. In about 4 to 6 weeks, you’re going to get a polite notice from the turnpike authority, and they’re going to request a small fine for a toll that you didn’t pay. Plus, there’s a picture of you, your license plate, zipping right past the automatic toll thing. Which you didn’t pay. Fifty cents would’ve saved the trouble, but you wanted to shave a couple of seconds off your travel time, and doing so, you incurred the wrath of the machine. To make this worse? It’s all automated. Maybe it’s better to take a little longer, and pay the 50 cents. Saves in the long run.
Libra: “If you’re on the loop, trying to get around town, it looks like there’s an accident on the feeder road, northbound. That accident is causing the pile-up of traffic.” Just about every big city (and some small towns) has a loop. It’s not much of a stretch of the imagination to consider that the problem with the Libra chart is not the loop itself, but that access road. Maybe an onramp or an exit, but the problem itself isn’t in the Libra lane. Except, that the traffic problem, like just about any problem, that traffic delay over yonder on the feeder road? That accident, wreck, fender-bender, flat tire? That’s going to have a cascading effect, and all of sudden, ingress and egress for the fine Libra folks is going to be blocked. Or, at the very least greatly reduced. You’ve been warned, what can you do about it? Personally, from what I know about Libra drivers? A little soothing music will help those delays. You can sing to yourself, you can sing to me, we can all play some song on the stereo that we all know and love, and just sing along. Sure beats getting upset that no matter what you do, there are delays.
Scorpio: So you’re headed home after a long day at work, and you slide a CD in the truck’s stereo, and the CD skips a few times. Fine, just listen to the radio, right? Sounds good. You get a traffic report. See, there’s been a main break in a water line, how that happens I can never figure out, but this break in the main is going to thoroughly, completely, and totally snarl your route home. Might not be today, but you can bet, sure as the sun rises every morning in the next week, there’s going to be water leak that’s going to hamper your orderly flow. I’m betting you tune into the traffic radio, and there’s some report about major piece of underground plumbing that’s not working, unless, of course, you like getting to work in a boat, and this little bit of trouble is going interrupt your Scorpio self from getting to Point A (or Point B, or even home) in a timely fashion. The water main breaks, the dam gives out, high water ahead. You can just hear that traffic reporter, “There’s water everywhere!”
Sagittarius: I don’t understand why the news is called the “rush hour report” because, near as I could tell, from where I was sitting in traffic, no one was rushing to get anywhere. At all. I had the windows down, and I was bemoaning my fate, as I flipped around on the AM dial of the radio, trying to find something that would tell me where I was, what the traffic delay was, and how I could avoid this mess. I finally got the all-talk, all-the-time radio station, with its up-to-the-minute traffic report. So basically, according to that one traffic forecaster, traffic in Sagittarius land is at a standstill. There is no real reason for this problem except that everyone is trying to get to the same place, at the same time, and I usually schedule myself so I can avoid the rush hour altogether. Turns out, there’s a stalled car in the other lane. Notice, it’s not even stalled in the Sagittarius lane, but that doesn’t stop all the other traffic from slowing down. Look: the “rush hour report” is next to useless and appropriately misnamed. The problem is a car — vehicular traffic — in the other lane. That’s where the stoppage is. Too bad about two facts: one, you get the rush hour report too late to avoid the problem and two, the cause of the delay isn’t even in your lane. Doesn’t fix the situation, so as long as your stuck in traffic, you can play with the radio.
Capricorn: “North bound, the Capricorn freeway is moving at a good pace, not slowing down, and you’re clear once you get to the northern mixmaster (the flyover in some areas).” That’s great news. However, on this of all days, of all weeks, your little Capricorn self needs to head south. “To the south of downtown, traffic is stop and go all the way to the mixmaster (flyover in some areas).” Sound a little too familiar? Doesn’t matter what your destination is, the one time you decide to go the other way? Unlike most times, there will be delays, setbacks, and maybe a set of flashing lights that indicate you’re heading in the wrong direction. It’s actually the correct direction, as you’ve got a show, an appointment, a date, some kind of a deal. The problem is the place you want to be? The route there? There’s some kind of traffic, just up ahead, and if you’d only listened to the traffic report, or if you’d scheduled this on a different day, then this southbound/northbound congestion wouldn’t be so bad. As it is?
Aquarius: Everyone else gets a traffic report. Being an Aquarius, though, you get a report on the traffic. We were headed in the from the lake one day, towing the boat, pictures up on the website someplace of the fish that was “that big.” We happened upon a long line of cars on the little state highway west of here, a place where the road passes through a small town, and there was some new construction, and I just figured that was the problem. As we pulled up closer to the stop light, the problem wasn’t the new construction, the problem was the stoplight. Its timing was all wrong. Way wrong. For the main artery, the highway, the light would be green for about 30 seconds than back to red. For three minutes. Two or three cars from the side road, the crossway would go across, and then we’d all be stuck there, hanging. Waiting. It’s an Aquarius thing, I’m sure you understand. The problem is the traffic light, or the electrical brain, if lights really have those, that governs the situation. While that line of traffic on the busy highway was only about a couple of hundred yards long, it felt like it stretched for miles and miles, and while the delay was only a matter of minutes, it felt like it stretched for hours. If there hadn’t been a boat behind the truck? We’d hopped the curb and gone around. Not really willing to drag a perfectly good bass boat through the ditch, though. So you’re stuck with the light out of sync. What can you do?
Pisces: we were headed south of town, pulling out from Shady Acres, and my Pisces friend was driving. “Freeway’s packed, doing that construction, so I figured we’d just take….” The next image I had was a sweet Pisces pounding on the steering wheel. Not only was the freeway closed, but at that particular juncture in time and space, everyone was using the same shortcut we were. Traffic was backed up clear to here. There. Wherever we were. So we start inching forward to the light. The Pisces girl flipped on the radio, and as it turned out, traffic was backed up everywhere. Not much to do but inch forward and add an extra half-hour to our travel time. I pulled out my cell phone, “Looks like we’ll be a little late,” I told the folks we were supposed to meet. “Yeah, well, looks like we’ll be a little late, too, save us a spot if you get there first.” See? It’s going on all around you. It’s not just you. The problem? You believed the media report, that traffic report, that the freeway was not the way to go? Looks like a lot of folks believed the same report, hence the problem. When faced with a delay like this, a phone call is a nice gesture, but I’m sure the other folks will be late, too.
