Fishing Guide to the Stars starting 10.27.2011

“What our contempts do often hurl from us
We wish it ours again.”
Shakespeare’s Antony & Cleopatra [I.ii.107-8]

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Scorpio: Happy Birthday and Happy Halloween! Could we pick a better holiday celebration for Scorpio? Put on a mask and act out your favorite fantasies? Does it get any better than this? Here’s the better news: Yes, it does get better than this! Here’s the problem: the planets. Here’s the good news: the planets. Wait, they are both problems and solutions? Yes! Lots of weird stuff is going on and the big holiday falls on a rather unfortunate astrological time, a dark moon. Not all bad, just not the best of times. As such, the clear choice is to pull on a very Scorpio mask, and then hide in plain sight. Put on your best Scorpio image, then decide where you want to be, out where we can all see you, or, at least, we can all see the mask. That’s what you want us to see, right? Right. In case you didn’t know. Perfect holiday for the best of the Fixed Water Signs: Scorpio. Happy birthday! Happy Halloween, happy All Saints’ Day, happy Day of the Dead, think we got it all?

Sagittarius: Normally, this is a dark time for Sagittarius. Look around — is anything normal now? That’s the fun part of this, and now for the warning, until we get through Halloween, there’s going to be a dark cloud over your Sagittarius head. Our Sagittarius selves.

The good news is that after Halloween? Venus and Mercury slip into Sagittarius and that lightens our load. We’re not as worked up. We’re not as frantic. We’re not as freaked out. The dark clouds lift. I’m less inclined to think that the clouds lift so much as there’s the dawn’s early light, the rosy fingers of the sunrise, just starting to streak the early morning sky. What in the world was I doing up at that hour, anyway? That’s part of the next week or two, as we get geared up for our birthdays. But slow, we aren’t here yet, and that little cloud is still on top of our heads just yet.

Capricorn: There are two texts over my desk. Frequent texts for reference when I’m stuck with a thorny problem, like Capricorn. One is Lao Tsu’s Tao Te Ching, and the other is T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (and other poems). Two very different schools of thought there. I’d prefer to use Tao, but I think Eliot’s Waste Land gets quoted more often by the Capricorn. Or that’s the poem I’d use, to describe. However, there’s a message in between the two. Someplace between dour and the Dao, there’s a possibility. I don’t really find this time to be too bad for Capricorn. There’s a glimmer of hope. This weekend, holiday and all, but this weekend, there’s the barest sliver of a New Moon. Lines up with your Capricorn self. There’s a little bit of hope. One of the important messages of the Tao is how to not go against the flow of the events, settings, landscape. As an astrologer, I like that advice. I’d also like to suggest that getting into the flow is much better way than sitting outside and complaining. Get engaged in the process, and the problems is less of a problem and more about getting from here to there. Which is what this is really about. That, and lots of Halloween candy.

Aquarius: One of the technology problems I’ve encountered is that there is sometimes too many ways to do a given task. I can use my phone, I can use an iPad, a small notebook computer, or a big desktop machine, all get to the same point. I have found that writing long pieces on the phone doesn’t work well, although I have at least one book chapter that was written on the phone. More because it was the only electronic text tool I had at hand at the very moment when the muse demanded dictation. This convergence is problematic as I was trying to pare down for a quick trip. I spent way too much time thinking about what gadgets needed to go with me. I spent way too much time balancing a notebook computer against a sub-notebook, while eyeing a phone. The phone has a camera and the notebook has a camera, do I need to take another digital image recording device as well? An old shoulder bag that I’ve got, it was quite voluminous, and allowed for a week’s worth of clothing in addition to the usual hardware. What I decided for that last trip, was to just throw everything in the bag. Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it? Now I walk with a limp in one direction from the weight of that shoulder bag, but who cares? Convergence, this can be technology, or it could be in another area, but unlike me, you need to shed a few items. Phone. Want that. It takes pictures too, and can e-mail. What else do you need?

Pisces:Two, maybe three blog motors back, I discovered that I could schedule entries. When I first started writing on the web pages, there was but one way, type it out then upload it, by hand. Not quite manual, but the functional, virtual equivalent of “by hand.” Gave me the tag line, “Bespoke Horoscopes.”

Always liked that. Micro-brew scopes, handcrafted. So I don’t do much by hand anymore, most of it is like sausage, you really don’t want to know what it is, or how it works, just that, by the time it makes it out to you, it tastes good, correct? Right. So that first “scheduling” discovery was a miracle.

As a Pisces, you’ve got a new-found scheduling power. Use it; use it wisely. I can count about four different events that need to be spread out. Can’t do them all in one night. Schedule it out. One each night. Spread out the impact of what you’re doing, over time. No rush. Don’t hurry or get in a panic; spread this out over the next few days. Much easier.

Aries: Last week, we played a game. I asked a question. Wonder why I asked, “Which tragic dead rock star are you?” Part of that just plays into the Halloween motif, but then, part of that also plays into the whole “Scorpio” thing going on. It’s the Scorpio time of the year. Sneaky little sign, them Scorpio’s. Part of the reason the look at dead rock stars is to understand what the fallacies are there, and to learn from the dead rock stars mistakes. Like don’t consume certain substances in deadly quantities, or don’t drink to impairment and drive a motorcycle. That kind of lesson. But part of this overly obsessive trait with the dead? Has to do with it being Scorpio time, and the average, well, you’re reading this, you’re above average, Aries doesn’t always get along with the sneaky Scorpio stuff. If I can get you looking at a particular image, a song, a group, what group, after the death of the lead star, wasn’t any good anymore? Anyway, if I can distract you with the Dead Rock Star game, you won’t notice that there’s a Scorpio sneaking around behind your back. Leave the Scorpio alone, just for now. So what dead rock star do you think you resemble?

Taurus: With most of my Taurus friends, I have no trouble whatsoever with the “long view” scenario. I have no difficulty explaining how patience is a useful trait under this current arrangement. I’m going to have trouble now, though, and I can see that. There’s a couple of pieces on the game board of the Taurus life that need to be set into motion. Pieces you have to play. Chips to cash in, roles to be undertaken, orders to be filled. Something, or, better yet, lots of something. Retrograde Jupiter triggered the New Scorpio Moon, on the opposite side. Now, the trick is, put as many pieces into play. Get the stuff out on the game board of life. I watched, in one casino as a guy put piles and piles of chips around on the roulette felt. The ball would drop One of his stacks of chips would pay off, something like 35 to one. He had another 20 stacks of chips, elsewhere. Net loss and gross gain? Still ahead. As a Taurus, take a gamble, take a wager, or, if you’re like me, and not a betting man, just push the chess piece out on the board. A calculated risk pays well. You just have to advance the piece on the game.

Gemini: Perfunctory preparation. Go through the steps of getting prepared. Locally, we have heavy weather kits. Batteries, a flashlight, bottled water, granola bars, duck tape, and my personal favorite, the Slim Jim beef-like stick of greasy meat-like product in a tube with tons of preservatives and salts. Ever notice that there is no expiration date on those? None. Last forever. Nuclear holocaust, there will still be Slim Jim beef sticks, now in a variety of flavors, safe to eat, hundreds of years later. This isn’t about Slim Jim look-like beef sticks, or even hurricane kits, unless you live along the Gulf Coast. This is about going through the motions to be prepared for next year. Rotate that stuff in and out of the box. Give it away, recycles, exchange for new. If you think this is just about a box of survival goods in the back of your closet, we’re all in trouble. This is about renewing and reviewing. Go through the material, look, very few people I know really have a hurricane supply of anything. But think about making perfunctory preparations.

Cancer: There was, to me, a frankly silly sound. A girl looked down at her phone and smiled. She set the phone back down. Happened a second time. Silly sound, she looked at the phone, I’m guessing, from the shape of the handset, it was a smart phone, and whatever the message was, it made her smile. That much is fact, observed. Silly sound, picks up the handset, smiles. Unknown, but clear to be a safe deduction is the smart phone and the sound being a message notify noise. The contents of the message? Who it was from, what it meant, what it was all about? That’s guesswork, but I’m good at this part of the game, it was from boyfriend (or lover), and the text messages were the little “I miss you,” and “I’ll see you tonight” kind of notes. Short, simple, like little tweets. Brings a smile, and the silly notify noise? I’m sure that was a custom ringtone assigned to just one account’s messages. If it were me, I’d do it that way. He phone chimed again, this time, different noise, she glanced down and frowned. What is fact, what is fiction and what the combination of the two? I took pains to point out where I departed from observed fact. Can you, as a Moon Child influenced person, can you make sure you point what’s fact, this week, what’s clearly a deduction, and what’s all fiction?

Leo: There’s a cut from a Crystal Method track, “Don’t blame the drugs in your bloodstream…” (Divided by the Night) which I’m sure is a sample of a sample. I was approaching the post office, and I was ambling at my usual afternoon gait. A, not unattractive, woman got out of car and loaded up an arm’s worth of packages, probably to mail. I stepped up my pace and opened the door for her. She gushed something enthusiastically. I held the door long enough for her to get through, then I rushed over to open the door to the office, while she kept rattling off some kind of, “thanks.” There’s a very bifurcated set of symbols here. This could be about the death of common decency, like just holding the door open for someone who is laden with packages. Could be that. There’s the other part, too, where I couldn’t make out a single thing she said. Earbuds. Music blasting. Wasn’t that loud, but I couldn’t hear a single thing she said. Death of common decency, like, when someone refuses to remove earbuds and therefore, can’t hear a single word being said? As long as the Sun is in Scorpio, which it is, there’s going to be an issue just like this. How it plays out is up to you. I just hope someone is nice enough to hold the door open for you, and even though, he can’t hear a thing you say, don’t forget to thank him. It’s only common decency.

Virgo: Not so strange, I was the only Anglo at breakfast. At a large table near me, must’ve been a weekend, there was a whole family. All female, all brown hair and brown eyes, burnished skin. Out of the whole table, maybe close to a dozen, there was one male. Male child. Little boy, between, I’d guess, six and ten years old. He had a demonic, possessed look. Blue contacts. I’ll have to assume that they were blue contacts, but I didn’t ask. I don’t know for sure. This observation, in his sea of women, he was the darling prince. I’d guess spoiled. If it were me, I’d opt for the natural eye color. I find the brown eyes, the brown hair, the flaxen, flowing locks, the sweet sashay, the ruffle of the peasant skirt, I like that much more than an artificial look. Could be me. We always want what we don’t have, correct? As a Virgo, this next couple of days, think about what you don’t have, and then, maybe, think about how you don’t need what you don’t have.

Libra: Actual conversation? “He’s gone now, you can use the front door again.” For real. Overheard. Although, in some situations, I’m sure, the imagination can easily stretch to the point to see how that might be a comment made about me. To me, really. Not much of a stretch. In my younger years, to be sure. The host of planets are ahead of you in Scorpio and even then, leaving soon, so it makes it easier for the Libra slice of life to get around. There’s been a serious sense of urgency and caution, both, at the same time. That’s gone now. It’s not as bad as it was. Saturn is still doing the slow roast in your sign, but that just means that the usually tender Libra will wind up like a piece of tough beef jerky. Not all bad, just the need to move in a cautious manner is leaving. No doubt you’l hear something like that comment, yourself. “It’s okay to use the front door now, Libra, he’s gone.”