Fishing Guide to the Stars
By Kramer Wetzel
For the week starting: 10/22/2009
"God grant we may never have need of you."
Shakespeare’s Richard III [I.iii.76]
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Scorpio: Finally, I heard a new one. It was a news crew, looking me over. "You UC?" The reporter asked, in some kind of verbal shorthand. "You see?" I queried back. "Under Cover." "No ma’am," I said to the young lady, "I’m a guitar player."
My voice was dripping in irony. Might’ve been sarcasm, I’m not sure. She just nodded, knowingly, "Cool. Musician." She assumed I was on an undercover assignment. Wish I knew what it was. I wish for a lot things, like world peace, better economic times, and a different tone to politics. I can’t change any of that.
However, I can mess with a reporter by answering stupid questions with stupid answers. Hello Scorpio. This is about you. This is about someone looking at you and assuming that you’re undercover, or something. I merely perpetuated that reporter’s mythology, but that doesn’t speak well for fair and balanced journalism. I’d suggest, birthdays and all? I’d suggest you have some fun with the answers, like I did.
Sagittarius: Puffy clouds. Moisture clouds. Rain clouds. White, cotton-ball looking clouds. The underside of some of the clouds? The parts that seem most visible? Looked like a cotton ball that was used to wipe up a spill — flat and dirty. Still, the clouds, looking at the clouds, guessing moisture and weather?
Okay, here’s how this breaks down: we can watch the weather, got a less than half and half chance of being right. We can look at the clouds ourselves, and there’s a better chance we can guess at the meaning and weather portents. Or best? We can go out. Doesn’t much matter if it’s rain, wind, clouds, or even a freakish clear day, sitting on our backsides — guessing — won’t tell us what ten minutes of experience will tell. That’s kind of the point.
Looking at the clouds, I’m good at guessing the weather. Looking at charts, I’m good at guessing astrology weather. Nothing beats getting out and feeling what its like outside. Less time predicting for Sagittarius. More time "doing" for Sagittarius. Better that way. However, it does look like rain, now that I think about it. Better be a little prepared for onerous weather events, but still, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get out.
Capricorn: Can you allow for freakish weather and strange weather patterns? I live in South Texas, and yet, I have to be adaptable to weird weather. Nominally, while it’s supposedly fall, it’s still warm here. Cool nights with the trailer’s windows open, snuggled up under a heap of blankets and warm afternoons, suitable for such pursuits as walking, hiking, and fishing. However, what usually happens, it doesn’t get really "cold" until after All Saints Day, or Dia de los Muertos. Or Halloween. Just a recurring memory, I’ve acquired, over the years.
There’s usually one cold front, an almost arctic blast of air that funnels down from Canada, but by the time the cold air gets here? It’s really more a cool front than outright cold. But the weather can be either way, and what I was worried about, for Capricorn, was either a freakish hot spell, or a nightmare-like cold front. One or the other, occurs this week. In your astrological face. I’m not saying hot or cold is better than the other, no, that’s not what this is about. But what will happen, if you want warm weather, it’ll be cold, and if you want cold weather, it’ll be warm. I’m just serving as an early reminder as to what the week ahead will hold.
Aquarius: For starters, I don’t recall where I was, where I was going, or what the deal was. I just remember the scene. It was a normal enough guy, walk along, pair of headphones on. Normal enough, right? Plugged into a Walkman, a flash media player, iPod, iPhone, i-music, whatever. I saw the guy again, in another turn, he might’ve gotten on the same bus I was riding, the same train, the same plane. I don’t recall. Might’ve been on the hike and bike trail.
The headphones had a standard headphone jack, plugged into a small adaptor, plugged into an Apple iShuffle, or mini-iPod, or whatever that clip-sized one is called. Not much bigger than a postage stamp or two. Maybe the the size of a squashed roll of stamps. Not very big. Smaller than one ear-piece to the headset. Which is why it was funny, in an off-beat manner. The source was smaller — way smaller — than the place the noise was played.
Music. Don’t know what he was listening to. In Aquarius, there a care a couple of elements. I was considering the truly ironic and bizarre notion that the source was much smaller than the headphones, when I realized that could be taken more than one way. Which might be the point, too, to what’s going on. Before you pause to ridicule someone, think about the situation, the appearances, and then, consider, wouldn’t yo like to be able to hear the music more clearly?
Pisces: Tourists are an interesting lot. I passed a pair of guys, and they heard the faintest strains of a bagpipe player, marching his way through a highland tune. That bagpipe player? I’ve always wanted to ask if he knows "Freebird." He’s of Latin cultural heritage, and he plays bagpipes in front of the Alamo.
The tourists, though? Their comment? "Must be an Irish bar around here, I hear bagpipes." That’s a "non sequiter," as in, it doesn’t logically follow. Bagpipes are Scottish. Guys in kilts. Scots. Hadrians’s Wall? Scots defeated the Romans? Crazy people? I mean, the Irish are pretty good fighters, too, and each grouping claims the finest whiskey, but this isn’t about whiskey, or fighting, or history. Or even Mexicans playing bagpipes.
No, this about silly associations that are patently wrong. "Bagpipes, must be Irish." I tend to beleive that my readers are educated, aware and not typical or average, and as such, you would laugh at the "Irish – Bagpipes" association. But you do have a choice in the next few days, you get to pick, which one are you? Quietly laughing to yourself, openly mocking a patently false association, or being laughed at for that statement?
Aries: I learned the art of "photo within a photo" by making a mistake. I’d taken a digital image of a puddle, the theme for the piece was "water," and puddles are more common than huge expanses of water, so it was a puddle, and when I tweaked the puddle’s image on my computer, just basic crop and color saturation, I noticed the reflection became more striking.
Which launched a whole new career of "puddle" images which gave way to a mirror–reflection category of images. Kind of interesting, in its own way. The first time was an accident, pure and simple. The second and third time, it was a little more intentional, but still, there’s an accidental nature to the way the pictures work out. I was taking a picture of a fetching bumper sticker on a car, and the photographer, the artist, me, I was caught in a the window’s reflection. Kind of cool, in a slightly weird way. Not that it matters, either. This is about the accidents turning into something interesting. But you have to look and observe what you’re doing, my fine little Aries friend to see this happening.
Taurus: I’ve been in this situation twice now. Fishing with a guide, and we’re out on the bay, Texas Gulf Coast. Got about a half-dozen lines in the water, and one of the lines starts moving — fish on! And then, the fish decides to make a long run for it and and that fishing line, Berkley Big Game line, I’ve watched as the fish is intent on snarling the lines as best as possible.
Me and my fishing buddies? I concentrate on reeling in the big fish and the buds, they are responsible for unknotting any mess. Not always a pretty sight. Can be problematical. Tangled fishing lines, especially on warm fall day in the Gulf? Part of what happens. The measure of one’s maturity, ability, enjoyment, and approach to life? How we all get along with untangling those lines, after the fish is in the boat. Was a big fish. Had it for dinner that night. Tasty.
The same guide, I’ve seen tangled lines with him before. Some days, he’s short tempered. Other days, like the day I was thinking of, he was waxing philosophical and grinning, like it’s all a part of the job. Which it is. You’re lines are going to get tangled. Either, for real (four reel), or as a metaphor. It’s how you deal with the problem, that’s the test. Us guys in the boat? While the first idea was just cut everything, about ten minutes of patient, "where does this one lead?" Got it all worked out. Eventually.
Gemini: As a Gemini, you are normally a bit flighty by nature.
Like a honey bee, you know, spreading pollen from one flower to another.
Or like a hummingbird, delicately vibrating up to the sugar water and then buzzing off to another feeder, in another state.
Gemini is inspired by sitting in my friend’s backyard, such as it is, in El Paso (TX) watching the hummingbirds buzz at their feeders.
Cancer: I understand the beauty of the sunset. A late October sunset, coming up from the Texas Coast, the western horizon ablaze in the radiant colors of the sun’s death notes at the end of the day? Really, very attractive. Pretty. Amazing, sort of like "god’s paint set," only it’s not paint by numbers. What I don’t get? I was driving and we passed a large truck, looked like it had family in it.
The driver, a male, and the front passenger, female, were busy with cell phones, taking pictures, or maybe movies, of the sunset. There is a time to do that. Pull over, get out of your car, it’s almost Halloween in Texas, and that means it’s still warm enough that you don’t need overcoats and such, and then take the pictures.
Stop the vehicle. Get out. I, for one, am guilty of taking pictures while driving. However, I tend to not do that anymore. Makes for erratic driving, which then tends to cause much horn honking and finger language. Which I would suggest we all make an effort to avoid. How to do this?
Okay, my fine Cancer friend, you see something that you want to get a picture of. Something you want to admire. Something that makes you want to stop and act. It’s quite all right, I’ve checked your chart, it’s alright to stop and act on it. It’s not alright — no way — to keep driving and trying to take a picture. Or movie. Or whatever they were doing with their cell phone. Do you get the image? Do one thing, handle one task, at a time.
Leo: Some days, it pays to be furtive and sneaky. Some days, it pays to be quiet, and sulking around the corners, sticking in the shadows and pretending to be, well, for lack of better words, Ninja-like. You know, clad in black, head-to-toe? Just the barest slit for your eyes, camouflage and subterfuge? Got a good, if sneaky, image of all that?
There are times that call for just such clandestine and secretive, quiet skills from a Leo. This isn’t one of those times. Be right, be wrong, but be known. You don’t have to yell, you don’t have to scream, but whatever point it is that you wants — or need — to make? Make it. Make forcefully, and, as I like to suggest, "unquiet."
Subtlety is lost. Forget trying to be kind and quiet. It probably won’t work. Worse, you have valid point. And if your valid (Leo) point gets skipped? If you don’t make an effort to be heard, then it is your fault. So skip being quiet. And even if you’re not right? Never hurts to be wrong in the loudest voice you’ve got.
Virgo: Buddy of mine is a Virgo. No surprise. He’s managed to get through the last couple of years, wrestling with Saturn, without too much a toll on his soul. "No good deed ever goes unpunished," he was telling me last week. He’s a late degree Virgo Sun, and guess what? Saturn has finally arrived to take its toll.
The master must be answered.
Which develops into a debate as to whether one is a master of one’s own fate or if life, as we know it, is just left up to random chance and the odd planet influence? Does the debate really matter? Not at this point.
Look, like my buddy, there’s one obstacle, one hurdle, one goal, one "something in brackets goes here" that you, as a Virgo, you need to finish. Need to do. Need to get from here to there. One task or job. One good deed. One item. Finish it. This week. Get it done. It’s that simple. No questions. No dithering around and pretending to work, either. Stick to that one, single goal. Destination. Task. And no surfing the web to avoid this, either. You can read your horoscopes later.
Libra: I’m always afraid that the "Onset of Scorpio," that phrase? It sounds like a disease. Anyone who’s ever dated a Scorpio and lived to tell? They will suggest it is like a disease. Maybe terminal and maybe one you can’t ever get rid of all the symptoms. Me? I wouldn’t know. I have a healthy respect for Scorpio and their ways.
As Scorpio commences, there’s a gradual shift and small sense of relief occurring in Libra. There’s a less frantic time. Less pressure. Less worried about some kind of stupid details that you really should let someone else worry about. It’s as if something has been lifted from your hands, and it’s now out of your (good) Libra control.
The point is to let the process work itself out. This isn’t about you or your Libra self, near as much as this is about something that’s completely out of your control. As such? It’s not worth fretting, worrying, or getting worked up over. At all. Skip it.
Find a nice Scorpio and wish them a happy birthday.
