Horoscopes for the week starting 7.15.2010

“The world’s mine oyster.”
Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor [II.ii.4]

Saturn shifts into Libra, opposing Uranus in Aries. There is at least one school of thought that will suggest the end is near.

Cancer: Happy birthday baby. Last of the extra good Cancer birthdays are now. This week. Through the end of this scope, anyway.

I learned a valuable lesson from one of my clients. Guy lost his job. Walked in one day and he was downsized. Right-sized, or, secretly, I think he was “RiFFed.” Reduction in Force. Less work, less hands-on-deck. Or more appropriately, squeezed out.

Now, this one buddy, not named bubba, he was working, albeit, not making as much money, within three days. One, there is work available. It’s not classy, it’s not in an air-conditioned office, and his Spanish is improving daily. On the positive side, it’s outdoor work, and it’s healthy. He’s getting a good tan. With some people being unemployed for up to a year or more? His three days seems pretty much like a record. Because he was turned out of the office job and into the out-of-doors?

We’ll get to fish in the next week because his current employer, if my buddy doesn’t show up for work one day? He just doesn’t get paid. That’s all. Opportunity comes in many guises. Take a lesson from my buddy. He got a three-day break, and his is much happier for the time being. He’ll go back to an office job. One day. Maybe.

Leo: The — purportedly — stoic author, Marcus Aurelius, suggested that, “We shrink from change but can anything be done without it?” (Book Seven, chapter 18)

Change is part of what we do, daily. When you wake up, my Leo friend, you roll out of bed, that’s a change in location. Adding some coffee to the morning diet, that introduces a change in body chemistry, as does various foods. These can be happy changes, too. I love that first cup of coffee in the morning, the hot water, the coffee — the smell of coffee. The warm, brown elixir as it starts to course through my veins. Love it all. The brain snapping to attention, sudden-like. Works wonder. Good stuff.

Change is brewing. Change is underfoot. How much of this change are you going to fight with? How much are you going to say, “I don’t want to change this,” or change that or whatever the deal is? You’ve been in constant state of flux, all your Leo life. It just felt like you were standing still. You’re not.

Engage. Embrace. Get with the new plan. Get a new plan. I’m not saying that the changes you embrace at this very minute are permanent. That’s not the question, not the problem. There is change. Marcus reminds us about that. Stop arguing, start engaging and embracing.

Virgo: One. One voice. Not what you think of when I say, “One Voice.” There’s one, lone dissenting Virgo. Loud. Louder than all the others. Drowning them all out, too.

One Virgo is going to make it bad for the rest of you. Therein is our problem. For the rest of you? There’s a bit of relief. There is a full moon rapidly approaching, sort of a Mid-Summer’s Night’s (something). Venus and Mars are the love planets, and they are working through Virgo, even now. Mars is action and Venus isn’t. But both are good. Both carry, you know, like, good energy. If used properly. Which, I’m sure, you will use correctly.

Except for one, there’s always that single, lone, dissenting voice. A voice in the wilderness. A voice all alone. One voice. Other than that? The rest of you? Enjoy it. Remember that the problem comes from that one voice, and that one voice keeps calling attention to Virgo. Not what you need right now.

Libra: I spent so much time traveling, when I finally settled down to a slightly more sedate pace? I still have the travel-preparedness genetic encoding. Means I keep a travel bag, several, packed. Ready to roll.

Some habits I’m not quite willing to give up yet. Organized and ready for travel, thinking in travel terms, always in a state of shift, jump and ready to roll. The ultimate, organized summer travel gear? Has to include a flannel shirt for cold (AC) climates, a laptop, phone, and a book. Maybe two books. To this day, I still carry a copy of Marcus Aurelius Meditations. Stoic philosophy. Then, I need one other book. Airport reading, which is a genre rather than a specific novel, usually implies trashy, sensationalistic, maybe a NYT bestseller. Something. Depth not required, although, in some of the lighter weight material there is a degree of depth.

However, that’s not what this is about, it’s about being prepared for delays. Being prepared for unexpected. I doubt you’re stranded in a departure lounge in West Texas, with a delay that lasts longer than the time I could drive home. Not that this has happened to me. Doubt that’s the case. However, you are faced with a momentary delay. The only problem is this momentary delay could last longer if you’re not prepared. I start with the Stoic Emperor, then drift off to a Clancy novel.

Scorpio: I was raised as liberal, non-fundamental Xtian, and these days? I’m basically Pagan or Neo-Pagan to be precise. Which has nothing to do with the catholic cathedral I was last in, just a few days ago. The humorists always make pointed barbs about me being struck down by lightening. Which all gets around to the point I was going to make about fundamental Judaism.

The way they tell that it is night? Observe the sabbath from sundown to sundown? The way that works? It’s officially “dark” or night, or whatever, when there isn’t enough light to distinguish between a red thread and a black thread.

I may have it wrong, and more recent council by the church might have another ruling, none of these faiths are a particular strong suite with me as I’m one of those guys who is fascinated by all aspects of humanity’s religions.

The moon is filling out and making promises. The problem being, not a lot of people can distinguish between what’s an empty, “I’ll do this one day” promise and the real promise of a job that can be started and finished in its allotted time. With tangible results. I’m not worried about Scorpio. That’s not a problem. Scorpio makes a promise? Scorpio keeps its word.

Sagittarius: How did that parable go? Chicken used to run around and scream the “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” Got to where no one believed that one character.

In the story, character in the story. The sky isn’t falling, but as a Sagittarius and with eternally hopeful outlook? We’re running into the those who think the sky is falling. Or the end is nigh. Near, really. But the sign I saw? “The end is nigh!” I can’t make that one up. Just report the facts.

So the end isn’t near, but it’s up to us to make sure that the truth is out there. Make sure people know. Then, too, there is another problem, as the leading indicators plunge yet again.

Think about this. Hurricane season is starting, in earnest. Sooner or later, there will be a trailer park from the Texas Gulf Coast, in the air, swirling around. Then it will land. The sky does seem like it’s falling. However, far enough inland? We tend to see this as a windfall.

Capricorn: Malicious glee. That simple. There’s a sense of — what is the term? Schadenfreude? I think that’s the term. Somebody — not Capricorn — gets what that character deserves. The hardest task for the next couple of days? This even gets worse as the week gets long and as the full moon gets closer, the biggest problem?

Don’t act happy.

While you and I can take inward delight at another’s misfortune? Being overtly happy and joyous? That’s just bad. Looks bad. I’m just saying, maybe, it’s not a good time, maybe, hey? It’s good time to practice the poker face.

Show no emotion.

There is a perverse, weird, odd and otherwise just strange payback. Someone else gets what that person so richly deserves. The idea? The point? In as much as you get to enjoy your malicious glee? Don’t let it show.

Payback, you know what they say. Stick to the quiet malicious glee.

Aquarius: I was listening to the usual litany of complaints and it was just one right after another. I’m used to it, and when I’m being paid for my time, I can listen.

As the diatribe went on and on, though, I started thinking about how this particular Aquarius, how this one person was drawing this material, attracting it, along a number of lines, looking for trouble where there wasn’t any trouble. Until that one Aquarius, dig deep enough, and even good stuff can be turned into a problem. “It’s good,” I say. “No, I know there’s trouble in there, someplace, just give me a chance to dig it up,” says the Aquarius.

Comes a time when it’s just a better idea to take the message on its surface value.

It’s good. Leave it alone. There might be trouble, but is this an item that you can fix? Is it fixable? By you? I’m not saying that there isn’t a small problem here, but if you keep looking for a larger problem to crawl out of that smaller one? Look long enough, look hard enough, and it will happen.

Clue? Stop looking for trouble. Trouble will quit finding you.

Pisces: Some years ago, I got on a kick where I was reading the diaries of Samuel Pepys. He was the original blogger. Why more writers haven’t figured that out just escapes me.

The diaries are offered in a variety of formats. There’s the short and edited version — I’ve got a copy — and then there’s the unedited, non-expunged, long, total manuscript. The original. I’ve got a copy. There was a live version where someone was running the Pepys diaries out on a weblog, 300 years later. However, in an odd way, the material was current. It’s historical value is so important because it’s a snapshot into the lives and actual, inner-workings of life back then.

I was just surprised that none of the current bloggers picked up the idea that this was the UR-blogger, the first one. Details about life, some very insignificant, others very important? How do you figure out what’s the important stuff and what’s not so important? In the last three-hundred odd years? Some of the superficial detail is really of great historical value while personal musings, once of great value? Not so much, anymore. Back to the Pisces question, how do you figure out what’s important and what’s not?

Aries: There’s a place (you know the brand) where I stop for coffee, or similar beverage, in the afternoon. One the patrons was gently teasing the guy behind the counter. I looked over, “He giving you trouble? If he is, just smack him around a little, although,” and I did the dramatic pause, “he likes that sort of thing.” Much hilarity ensued.

That set off a lively debate about crime and punishment, and how the reward has to outweigh the retribution. It was all, to me, harmless fun. Another patron was a passive observer. “You come here a lot?” I knew the signs of the help. I couldn’t tell you their names, but I know what’s important.

So, I guess, yes, I went there a lot. The excited interchange was amusing to me, and what I left behind was two guys still exchanging ribald ripostes.

As an Aries, that’s the goal, drop a verbal bomb, or more like an engaging counterpoint, and then? Leave. Let them fight it out. Just because you started it? Right now? No, you don’t have to finish it.

Taurus: People often mistake a habit I have. Often the mistake is confusing habit with hobby. I take a lot of pictures, or I have, over the years. It’s not a hobby, and I don’t do it professionally, so its realm is some place in between. The pictures? They serve a very valid purpose of reminding me what I was thinking at a particular moment. Something I wanted to remember.

The symbolism isn’t lost, not on me. However, confusing my passive action, taking a picture or three? Confusing that with some kind of active principal at work? I was gushing about the picture taking because my immediate response to the Taurus chart? I was thinking about the pictures, and just taking digital images.

Silent, not active, no moving images, no video, just still images. Snapshots, only, silently. Reminds me a cat, too. Just there, staring, Eyes, unblinking. Can’t tell if the cat is about to pounce, run away, or roll over to be scratched.

Can’t tell what Taurus is up to. That’s the reason for the digital camera idea. Consider yourself as a bystander. Watching. Maybe (quietly) taking pictures. Passive observer. That’s how I’d like to suggest you make it through the next few days. Phone has a camera, doesn’t it?

Gemini: I was trying to come up with a new way to describe Gemini. I’ve used the term, “Finely cut gemstone,” since every Gemini has many facets, but only one person at its core. I’ve used several other terms, too. I was answering a questionnaire about dinner engagement, and what I put down? “Kramer plus one.”

That’s me, ever hopeful. I looked over at all that crap in Virgo (Mars, Saturn, Venus), and I thought about gentle Gemini. Then — Gemini — I had a second thought. A new way to describe the typical Gemini? Plus One. I know that there are many facets to the Gemini personality, but the easiest way for a non-Gemini to grasp the idea? Plus one. That’s Gemini. The problem being, with all that minor crap in Virgo? The “plus one” isn’t happy.

I have a usual date for such events, and my “plus one” was not amused at being referred to as a “plus one” and seeing that, it almost became “Kramer minus one.” Tragedy was averted, no doubt due to my ability to smooth over situations. Can your smooth over situations like you usually do? Or are you a little more fractured than usual?