"We know what we are, but know not what we might be."
Shakespeare’s Hamlet (IV.v.37)
SXSW extended dance mix.
Pisces: Between now and the time the next Pisces scope rolls up, we’re still in Pisces. By my estimation, the new scope rolls over in Aries about the same time these scopes move forward, afternoon/evening of the 19th. So between now and then, we’re firmly in the Pisces quadrant, actually, really, about the last third of Pisces.
Tail-end Pisces birthday, yes, happy birthday to you. Full moon, in Virgo approaching. Yes, that one is fun, too. What are going to do, as long as we’ve got the Venus, Mercury and the full Moon? Pisces birthday energy kicking along? Did you ever notice that harmless act of weirdness can sometimes make somebody’s day? Just a tip. One, little random act of weirdness? Whatever it is, and I can’t think of example, but just one? Helps with the necessary levity.
Aries: I’ve see this several times, and it’s an almost painful experience for me. I’ve watched as a car’s shocks fail to have any rebound dampening. Means the springs are good, but the springs keep on springing. So when I suggest a car is bouncing down the road, I mean, quite literally.
It’s an easy mechanical problem to correct, new shock absorbers. The springs take the main impact, and the dampening of the shock absorbers keep the springs from continuing to bounce. Simple device, plain idea, works wonders in modern transportation systems. What I’ll usually see, what prompted this concept, it’ll be a slightly older model of sedan, paint a little thin, and obviously, the vehicle’s been used. Perhaps the trunk was used to haul rocks, bags of concrete, earth fill, who knows? But whatever the duty, it wore out the shock absorbers, hence the bounce to the car’s behavior.
I’m just trying to help my Aries friends. It’s a little routine maintenance, but failing that, you’re going to be acting like that car with the worn shock absorbers, just bouncing along, up and down, looking a little silly with your issue. Dampening, that’s all is called for, a little dampening.
Taurus: "Yeah, yeah, ‘beware of the ides of March,’ and so on. Whatever." Taurus girl, quoting back some Shakespeare. It’s from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Used the bit several years in a row, and it was a running gag. Problem being, I’ve over-used it. Properly speaking, too, the title of the play is "The tragedy of Julius Caesar." And properly speaking, the joke went from just being a little un-funny to being very lamentable, tragic, even, in that I kept trying to peddle it again and again.
Running gags require rhythm and repetition, in order to be funny. Matter of finding the correct combination, the right way to repeat the material. Make it work together. At the very least, fit the material in with current themes. That kind of rhythm and repetition works well with the current Taurus elements. There’s a little of this and little of that, spurious influences, but even an indirect nudge in one area is a help.
Look, there’s going to be a soothsayer come along, a visionary, maybe a simple astrologer, and that person is going to warn you about upcoming proceedings. I’d suggest, just as an idea, that you pay attention to the warning. You know what happened to Caesar when he didn’t listen to the free advice?
Gemini: "Step right up, here, young man, you can take a swing at this, and I’m sure you’re lovely friend, is that your wife, I’m sure she will adore you if you win her this big teddy bear…." It’s a come-on, the guy is called a drummer or a barker, and what he does is generate traffic towards a game that can’t be won, or if it can be won, it usually takes more than one try. Like multiple ring tosses, or shots with the crooked gun, or whatever the scam is.
Scams, games, rigged games, come-on artists, salesmen, hype. The odds are against you now. I’m not saying that the odds are always against you, but the harping of the barker, the general tone, the way this game is a set-up, the way this week is set-up, it’s like, and you know this in your heart, the odds are not in your Gemini favor. I’m not saying it’s bad, it’s just not the best that it can be.
To help tilt the game a little more in the house’s favor, too, there’s a salesman, a front man, a person out in the front, doing a certain amount of fast talking, and this doesn’t have to a be a male, either. It can be a woman, using her womanly charms. Doesn’t much matter at all, either, as my warning is to watch out for the hype. You don’t have the luck, and unless you’re really sure about your skill set with this one game? I’m not willing to bet on you when the odds are against you. If me, a guy who likes the long shot, if I’m not willing to bet on you, that should say something. All I’m suggesting is you cut through the hyperbole before you pony up some cash.
Cancer: I was standing in line at the post office. For me, this is a welcome respite in the middle of the morning, or afternoon, and I have way with timing it, too. Like bad timing. I usually have to mail a package when there’s a long line. No line? Nothing to mail. Don’t need stamps or anything. But a long line usually occurs when I need to ship something express mail.
I’m sure there’s a natural law that governs such events in life. In Cancer, even as I’m sure this pops up on the web page, Mars is in there. And Mr. Mars makes Cancer a little more impatient. Not that this is bad, but as I was standing there, me at the end of the line, a woman comes in with a child in tow. The kid won’t settle down, always wanting to run out into the spring sunlight. Kid’s a handful, a ball of energy, looking for an escape. The mother — a Cancer — gets frustrated and finally leaves, packages not mailed. Stamps not purchased.
I was at the end of the line, and although there are a half-dozen windows, there’s basically only two clerks working. Now, I know from repeated dealings with the post office that the line will drag on and on, with a factor like that child or similar influence making the service slower. Mars is like that. What I do? I realize that there’s a conspiracy, and ten-minute stop might take an hour. I can’t fix Mars, but you can adjust your attitude.
Leo: "This call may be monitored or recorded." Or something like that. I hate hearing that. I do record a lot of my phone calls. It’s what I do. So I have a recording device hooked up to my phone. I’ve been tempted to record some of the service calls I’ve had to make, just to burn that as an audio file then pop it onto the website.
Most phone professionals are easy to get along with. Occasionally, though,there will be the odd caller, like me. With my persistent questions, obtuse references, an odd smattering of pop culture that might — or might not be — germane, yeah, I can exasperate even the most patient customer service rep. I take it as a challenge, and I hope that I’m not talking to a Leo.
Leo seems to have a finite amount of patience these days. Unlike my CSR. I can’t really address that, but I can hope that your patience is tested by someone like me. Folks like me, we’re easier to ignore. Or you can easily tune us out. We don’t matter that much, and in as much as we’re a little annoying, we’re — generally speaking — not so annoying that you have to get a big (cudgel, club, hammer) to hit us over the head. Which is the temptation for this week — the challenge — as it were. The real point of your (royal) humanity gets tested by a couple of calls from annoying clients like me. And how you deal with us? That’s the answer. Patience, still in short supply, but patience, and a certain amount of mental "whatever" helps move it along.
Virgo: I worked with one astrology-minded person who was so obsessed with using the stars to manage everyday events, it was almost crippling. In the next week, Venus will move into opposition to Virgo, the Sun will move out of opposition to Virgo, the Moon will move in an out of Gemini, Cancer, Leo, and ultimately, at the very end of this scope, the Moon will line up with Saturn, both in Virgo.
That’s a lot of material to cover in a week. Too much to try and micro-manage. Get it? There’s a point when you can stack the planets in favor of your endeavors. That’s a good idea. There’s also a point where you can spend too much time trying to make this material work for you, and too much analysis leads to paralysis. What I’m warning you about. Don’t over-think a problem, a situation, any of your deals.
Mars is loping along in Cancer, adding a little domestic energy to the mess. Instead of spending too much time trying to figure out what means what, and when is a good time to start this? Consider that now is a good time to get your backside into a gear, down the street, out on the road, over to the store, down to the office, and otherwise? Just in motion. Sitting there, thinking about it? That’s not going to fix the problem. When is a good time? Anytime is a good time. Now. Do it. Move.
Libra: Techno, which, to me is disco, really, and as such, I have to frown upon it, because really, like any aging rock and roll person, I have to believe that "disco sucks." But Techno music, it’s a different brand; therefore, it’s okay for me to enjoy it — as long I don’t dance. Unwritten rule, white guys like me can’t dance. "I’m just saying," you wouldn’t want to be present. Not that it matters.
This isn’t about the dancing, it’s more about the ambiance and the tone you set. It’s about choosing background music, it’s about making the correct choice. And even though the music is called "techno," or whatever, "electronica" that we’re calling it these days, it’s still, the idea, the musical inspiration comes down to a fast beat with easy-to-circumscribe rhythms.
Fast beat, maybe twice as fast the normal heart-beat rate. Moving music. Pretty hard to sit on my butt while that stuff is going. I try and get a thing going with the keyboard and get it synched up to music, but that’s like the dancing, not a happening thing. So you’re going to be like me, there’s going to be hard back beat that’s tough to ignore, that’s the positive influence. The idea that you’re like me, more than ever, and you can’t get "in sync" with the rhythm — whatever the taxonomy of the music is.
Scorpio: Dinner, the other evening, at a Tex-Mex place. I tend to dine at times when I can avoid the crush, but I’d gotten caught, and it was a 20-minute wait for a table then another 20 minutes to dinner. I was casually shoveling hot sauce, rather tasty and piquant stuff, onto broken chips and gulping it down. Good stuff. Excellent hot sauce, that one place.
There was telltale trail of sauce, leading away from the dish, and the drops of sauce told a tale of a man that was hungry. As I looked, and as another drop leaked onto the tabletop, I was wondering if I could make a good ad for this place. Imagine, licking the hot sauce up from the tabletop. Yes, it’s that good, the hot sauce, not the tabletop. Gobbling up the last drips, good to the last drop? Wait, I think that’s been used already. Too bad, as it’s an intriguing visual image, hot sauce so good that someone would lick it straight off the table. Hate to waste it, you know.
As this week gets wilder and wilder, and as the Scorpio madness doesn’t slow down, consider what it would be like, you trying to lick that hot sauce off the table’s top. Consider, too, that I understand it would be an amusing visual for advertising, but the hyperbole exercised in the advertising world, and your own excess, might not be perfectly aligned. I’d go slow with some of that Scorpio exuberance.
Sagittarius: I was fooling around with a set of digital images. I was supposed to be working, but I was just messing around with the photos, instead. I was working on a theme, an idea, a way to display the images. Then, as I got to messing with the photographs, the digital copies, I could see how I could easily get stuck on one way to display the pictures, and how, even though it was a theme that I liked, I would still get to be a little too repetitive.
Like, it was a good idea once. Maybe an okay idea twice. Three times was pushing, but then, what I was doing, repeating the same process over and over? After the third batch, it — the concept — was worn out. I wasn’t, but the idea was. I also had to realize that I was at a stopping point with that one idea. I had to come to grips with the point that it was time to come up with a new idea.
Now, how I choose to display my images on the website, that’s, like, not really a big deal. I can pick and choose any way I want. But in matters of taste, I also know that it’s a good idea to occasionally break up the pattern. That’s what this is about, too, breaking up a staid and conservative Sagittarius pattern. I know, I know, you’ve got to know the rules to break the rules, but still. Consider changing it up. There’s pattern, and only you — me — us — Sagittarius — can change our own pattern. Now’s a good time.
Capricorn: It was strange in that it wasn’t strange. Warm March afternoon. I was strolling around downtown, me, in and amongst the business suits, hippies and homeless folks. Guy is walking along with a pair of buddies, ostensibly headed out for lunch, The little corporate tag is hanging from his shirt, plastic sleeve, I think, a city employee, might’ve been state or county, I couldn’t really tell.
The guy was wearing cowboy boots, clean but faded jeans, and a Hawaiian shirt. Red hair, pulled back in a ponytail, gray at the temples. I paced the crowd for about half a block. I had on a portable music player, Talking Heads, "This must be the place," (Naive Melody).
At that one moment, there was a great happiness internally. The musical message, seeing a guy dressed like that, it all made a weird kind synchronistic sense. The attire, boots to ponytail, the gray, the song, the musical interlude. Stop what you’re doing. Look. See, see if where you’re at is really where you’re supposed to be. I suspect, like me, there’s a clear message. You might be where you’re supposed to be. Are you paying attention to the subtle messages you get?
Aquarius: Red brick courthouse. There’s one in downtown Dallas. Downtown San Antonio. Austin doesn’t have one like that, but then, Austin’s always been a little weird. Fort Worth, they cleaned theirs up some. I can think of a couple of small town that have similar, if not nearly identical structures. The county courthouse. Where it all starts — for some of us — and stops.
The, usually, red-brick courthouse will be in the heart of what used to be the center of downtown. All roads led to it. The brick, if those old bricks could just tell stories, I’m sure there’s a tale or two that would entertain. When I’m in a new place, or when I’m trying to get oriented in a small town, I’ve found the easiest place to start is the town square. Looks for the red-brick courthouse. Works in my world. Half the time, the town square has been by-passed by a freeway or highway, and the square rarely ascends to its former grandeur. Doesn’t matter. The old stones, the old red bricks, they still hold their stories.
This is about trying to find the heart of a place. The geographical, spiritual center of town. Have to find where the heart is, or where the heart once was, and from there, like those roads that branch, there a number of avenues to follow. But first, before we go anywhere, Aquarius, let’s find where the heart is. Or was, in some cases. Have to have a starting point in order to have a destination.
