"He makes July’s day as short as December."
Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale (I.ii.203)
7.07.07 — coming up.
Cancer: Happy birthday to all those nice Cancer folks. There’s a sense, a subtle sense, that life is improving. As I’ve already pointed out, Mercury is no longer in backwards motion, not by the end of the week, and that’s a small joy. The moon is at its most introspective period, and that, plus the unraveling of the Mercury mercurial times would suggest that this is a quiet time for a Cancer. Except for that pesky holiday thing. Loud noises, flaming & shooting stars, items that don’t so much as go bump in the night, but more like, explode with ferocious energies? Yes, that’s what it’s like. Which hampers a moment or two of quiet and necessary introspection, but still, I’d like to suggest the easiest way through this morass of the week, is to look back.
It’s as much a function of Mercury being in apparent retrograde motion in your sign as it is anything else. But this is highlighted by the moon’s phase. Stop, look at your feet. Look at where you’ve been. Your most recent tracks in the Cancer’s Beach of Life are all but erased by the ebb and flow of the tide. However, in order to proceed, it’s time to see where you’ve been.
In the middle of the rush and crush of the holiday-making, the parties, and so forth? Give yourself enough time to look over where you’ve been, note what places you don’t want repeat any particular process, and then start to plot a course forward. Here’s a real hint: that course you plot in this next week? It will change directions in the week after — much for the better. But start planning now.
Leo: As much as I dearly love my Leo friends, and as much as I love a good, rousing get-together, I’m just suggesting that a little time cooling off is a better idea. Early July tends to be marked by weird weather patterns, at least locally. There will long weeks with nary a hint of rain, and then, all of a sudden, it smells like rain as cloud forms billow up from the coast and the Gulf to make it look like rain. Seems like rain. Might not be rain, might be just a cloud. Might be a terse thunderstorm, too.
The other morning, just such a cloud rolled overhead, and there was a smattering of rain in my neighborhood. Wasn’t much. Could’ve been more. It was like a sprinkler, really, just an errant sprinkle that hinted at rain, and I’m not sure this one cloud even registered on weather radar. But that morning, it did drop the temperature for a few minutes, and it did act as a cooling agent, if only for a short time.
Short-term cooling agents are operating in your chart. (Any one who’s spent any time in a Texas summer knows that a gentle cooling trend might only be welcome relief for all of about three hours, but any kind of help, in the Leo chart, these days? Take what you can get.)
Virgo: The Virgo section of the sky has been quiet lately. Altogether too quiet. So quiet, I’m worried. Not real worried, mind you, but still the extended silence is deafening. Makes me wonder what’s up with the Virgo slice of the heavens.
One Virgo is on extended leave for the summer, getting ready for a busy fall. Another Virgo is out-of-the-country, again, long vacation. Still another is spending time with various chunks of meat, preparing them for smoking. The preparation of brisket, prior to being introduced to 18 hours of mesquite smoke is an arduous and semi-secret process. Takes time. Meat has to be massaged, marinated, poked and prodded, apparently, then there’s the 11 herbs and spices combination, and none of us are sure exactly what goes into this one Virgo’s recipe.
But like my buddy preparing the meat, prior to smoking it, and like those other Virgo folks on long and extended voyages, there’s a sense that something is going on, only, the rest of us aren’t aware of it all. Just as soon as the holiday wraps up? It’s time to imitate the action of my BBQ buddy, with his secret combination of spices. A little quiet work, all by your lonesome yields spectacular results.
Libra: I was going to use an example from a client, but then, the more I twiddled your Libra chart, the more the example switched around. Which is why I tend to record all my personal readings, so there’s a copy in the hands of the client. Makes it easier. Something to go back to, and I can say that I really did, or didn’t say what the client thought he or she heard. Is this important? Yes. It was an unrecorded reading, a short one. What the client understood was that I suggested I made a pass at her. Which was the furthest thing from my mind. I was concerned about the effect of a couple of planets and the sum of those energies being focused as an active principal in the chart.
It was a simple case wherein I got carried away and gushed enthusiastically, and the delicate Libra missed the point. Completely. It’s not about me, it’s about the client. And it’s not about what I was saying, what I was reading in a chart, it’s about what the listener, a Libra, chose to interpret into what I was saying. Leap of faith, leap of something, be my guess. That same energy is focused at a particular point in Libra. It’s about being very careful and not too liberal with interpretations. It’s all about making sure that you’ve got all the facts, and that there is complete understanding of all the material covered.
Jumping to conclusions is bad. Leaping to conclusions with no shred of supporting evidence is worse. It never hurts to ask someone to repeat a statement, to insure that there’s a mutual understanding of the meaning, implied, applied, or replied.
Scorpio: A friend was over, the other afternoon, as I was taking barbed treble hooks off of a handful of little spinner baits, which I’d picked up on sale. Less than a buck for the fishing lures, a weight that’s really too light to use locally. I had on reading glasses because the little split rings were hard to work with, the lures themselves are so tiny and light in weight, I needed the extra magnification. After pulling off the hooked hooks, I was replacing them with earring hangers. Very inexpensive jewelry.
But my fine little Scorpio friend, being as she was, wanted to know about getting me to make a bracelet out of those same lures — except — leave in the hooks. "Can’t you imagine it? Lean in for a hug, and then they’re trapped! Be great, market it as an S&M Bracelet." I looked over the reading glasses and probably arched my eyebrows. I’m not about to market any such kind of an item, but in retrospect, the idea has a perfect Scorpio hook to it.
I’ve given you an idea. You can run on down to the sporting goods store and figure out if there are enough lures to make into such a device, then you can set up a web page, distribution, rights, patents and so forth, and you’re rich. And you can thank me with a small percentage of the profits. Like me, you’re full of good ideas, and like me, I’m suggesting that your good Scorpio ideas are best employed by other people. I wouldn’t know where to begin to market just such an item. A brilliant Scorpio, though, you just might.
Sagittarius: I picked up a local broadsheet publication, the something-something local news something. I’d name it, but I do believe they’ve ceased publication, It was essentially a double-sided paper with advertising, quotes, advertising, trivia, advertising, horoscopes, and advertising. When I queried the editor about the horoscopes, as there was no byline for the broadsheets’ material, that editor admitted that the scopes were of their own manufacture, and had nothing to do with planets, astrology or any of the intuitive arts. "I just make them up at deadline," the publisher wrote back.
The lucky numbers were picked from a fortune cookie each week. So that’s how that works. Consider I’m Sagittarius, on our eternal quest for truth, justice, and a decent chicken-fried steak. Consider, too, that our sense of the absurd is being tweaked by a couple of planets these days. Those horoscopes that have nothing to do with reality? Something like that might actually make sense, but it’s a numbers game, as in, include enough of the right buzzwords, and something will ring true.
I’m looking at the phase of the moon vis-à-vis Jupiter, and the Sagittarius slice of the sky. Tap into the power of Jupiter to bend something for the better. While my original query letter was not met with financial reward, I was aptly compensated by learning another trade secret. And now you know, too.
Capricorn: The "Head of Vecuna," as I understand it, is a powerful D & D item. Considering that it’s all an imaginary game, I guess that the "Head of Vecuna" is an idea or an ideal, not a real item. Unless, of course, you’re a gaming nerd, and then it’s very real. I know nothing about the game. Family members have participated and partaken, but not me. Friends and cohorts are adamant about the games and their variations, but again, this isn’t my realm. I know nothing about it.
I was doing a little research on the internet, and these days, pop a term in a search engine and sort through the top dozen results, that counts as research. Hardly my image of research which involves stacks of books, and library shelves stuffed full of arcane treaties on bizarre topics. Just not quite the same, these modern times. Besides, poking around on the internet, is that really research? Or is it more like idle time, wasted reading bits and pieces of material that might or might not matter? Never mind.
The "Head of Vecuna," from what I could find, is some sort of a great, supernatural form of power. Capricorn, you need just such a device. You need something to give a quick push in the right direction. I doubt you’re big into D & D. And I might be wrong about the meaning of the term, but if it is, in fact, something that denotes great power and ability, you need one. Now. Life is rarely like some kind of role playing game, but there are parallels. You need some kind of device, term, potion, weapon — something — to lend you the strength that you need to make it through. Find your own, personal "Head of Vecuna," or whatever it was, is, that you need.
Aquarius: Mercury rights himself just in time for a couple of points to fall apart. You can blame Mercury, but that’s sort of a fallacy, as the root of the problem was already in place, and the mercurial shifting of the planets have merely brought this problem to the surface. To me, it looks like this a difficulty with office politics. It has to do with acquisitions and mergers, the way small companies are consumed by larger corporations, which then leads to a round of "personnel reductions," in the spirit of reducing overhead and redundant work force.
I’m hardly one to side with big business, but what I’ve observed, time and again, marginal performing employees are offered a chance to remove themselves — or to perform better. It’s a matter of producing results, and sometimes, that can be a little like magic. You have the ability to perform just such magic, too, real, verifiable results as opposed to those people who traffic in largely intangible goods. If you’ll stick to the theme of cleaning up the mercury mess, and if you’ll put forth an effort to help the mythical "bottom line" the bean counters refer to? There will be a good chance that your Aquarius work gets recognized and rewarded. But the point is crystal clear, there’s still some hard work for the rest of this week, while everyone else is playing.
Pisces: A delicate Pisces got a hold of me for a quick chart reading. "I’ve been so depressed lately, I wasn’t interested in boys, not even shoes." That’s some serious, life-endangering statements, given the person talking. It’s not a typical Pisces, either, and the sentiments might not be shared by all, the "not interested in shoes or boys," but the idea has merit. It points to a problem that’s shared by all of the fine Pisces these days, as the summer doldrums continue to be just what they are. It’s a long month, so it seems, and there’s the weather.
Around here? Too hot. Except when it threatens to rain, and then it’s too humid, even if it’s not too hot. One little wilting flower of a Pisces commented that she was sweating. I demurred and suggested glowing. She said, "Sweating — not glowing – not the same thing. This is sweat."
Shoes and boys hold no interest. It’s warm enough to cause one to perspire heavily. It’s the long, hot days of summer. And nothing will change that. But something’s got to change, and there is a degree of hope. A few select Pisces are warming up nicely under the influence of Uranus. And the rest? Just because the usual distractions don’t work? That doesn’t mean that there isn’t some other kind of new, and different, distraction just up ahead. Consider a change in distractions, and see if that doesn’t help some.
Aries: "July 5th is National Hangover Day," said the local singer/songwriter. There was another line I was going to use from that onstage banter, but when I was looking at the date for the chart to start this week, that’s what caught my ear. I was going to make another, more interesting point, but that misses the mark with too many of the Aries folks. And while I’m not a "drinking man," not by any standard these days, that doesn’t mean that I don’t suffer in a similar manner from a little too much of something good, on the day after.
This time? As much as anything, probably my ears as my hearing will suffer. Not so much from loud firecrackers, more likely from loud music. The middle of the week, and everyone is still going at it, too, the sense of freedom the sense that there’s really something worth celebrating, the whole point of the party-time? Huh? Get the image, now, my dear Aries? Some one needs to be working, and that’s going to fall on the shoulders of the Aries. Someone needs to be making sure that the wheels and skids of commerce continue to roll along, and no one is better suited for that than Aries. While everyone else is suffering from wretched excess, time for Aries to consider the next useful step forward. Put some Aries muscle into the action — might not cure everything, but it will get the process started. Again.
Taurus: I was stopping in a coffee shop for a summer afternoon libation, just a quick bit of caffeine to make the walk a little more enjoyable. A distantly familiar visage was working, that afternoon, I blurted out, as a greeting, "What are you doing here? I thought you only worked nights?" I was hot and sweaty as befits a June afternoon in Central Texas. She was young and svelte and bears an uncanny resemblance to a former lover of mine. Eerie, in some respects. So I wasn’t being my smooth and cultured self. Besides, she wasn’t suppose to be there, not as far as I understood the schedules and so forth.
I don’t make it habit, but I do keep track of certain items, like the phase of the moon, and the day of the week. So it was odd, duly noted, and she explained that she hadn’t had a Friday or Saturday night off, in, like, two years. It was overdue. She simply swapped shifts to get some relief. See how the other half lives. Although she’s not a Taurus, she did have the similar problem that some of the Taurus are having, especially, with Mars frying along. Time for a break. If one doesn’t present itself? Maybe you should do something about it. Could be as simple as swapping a shift for an evening off.
Gemini: My morning was rolling along pretty well, as I dispensed with the usual material, dealt with problems, fixed stuff, adjusted charts and stars, and so forth. Then, the bad luck started. I’m aware of Mercury and its relative position, and its relative impact from said position on your now-frail Gemini psyche. But just to make sure I learned the lesson, I got hit with a half dozen minor irritants. Any one wouldn’t have been bad, the e-mail on the server burped, which meant, I was expecting a mission-critical note, and it wasn’t coming through, and I need that information, like before I stepped out the door.
But I grabbed a fishing pole, and there was a pair of fish, so I dropped bait right in front of them. Almost on top of the fish’s head. Took the bait. I pulled back, and the clever fish had wrapped the line around a submerged stump. Hook was buried in the stump, and I wound up with no fish, plus, that fish was fed. On my bait. Finally, these come in a cycle of three? Post Office box was locked. Locked from the inside. I’d sent a check in a timely fashion, only, apparently, it hadn’t arrived, so I didn’t get any mail for two days. One isn’t a deal breaker, but it did make me scared to answer the phone. Happens three at time.
