Fishing Guide to the Stars starting 12.6.2012

“Give me your hand. I can tell your fortune.
You are a fool.”
Shakespeare’s Two Noble Kinsmen [III.v.74-5]

Shakespeare’s canon references more than 50 kinds of birds, and it includes doves, thrush, robin, wren, and bunting.

Sagittarius: Sweet lass, the other evening at dinner, not a Sagittarius. She rattled off her birthday then explained she was bit frantic because she was getting married next spring.

She talked about the date, looked at me, asked me if it was a good time. This is where, I wasn’t paid, I was trying to be nice, how do I politely put this? The date she suggested coincides with bad planet action. Not a great or auspicious date, not by my standards. If an astrologer picked it, I’d question the judgement, but it wasn’t my call. After I nodded, and we had dinner, I thought about a way to say, a way to explain, poor dear, her new husband was going to get hit with a stupid stick, as soon the ink was dry on that new marriage. He was running through a forest of stupid sticks, and he was going to get hit on the head by each one. Three weeks of hell, right after the vows.

Predictable, and predictably bad. Where I come in. The same stupid forest is up and around Sagittarius, even now. There is a way to negotiate this, though: slow down. Didn’t say stop. Didn’t say, “No.” Just slow.

Capricorn: You have to learn to LISTEN. One of my best skills as an astrologer, as an intuitive, as a human being? Listening. Art of listening. The skill set required is easy, sit down, hold on and shut up. Listening. Listening does not occur when I’m talking. There is a suggestion that I should listen to what I say more often, but that’s not the issue at the moment. As I unraveled the Capricorn chart?

I kept thinking about a simple request I made of a Capricorn friend. I asked for a specific piece of art work, certain size for displaying on a companion website. Simple task. My buddy, bless him, he did his very best. Wonderful artwork, good execution of everything but the specified size. Missed it completely. Capricorn, through and through.

To keep this from happening, even though Mercury is no longer backwards? Listen.

“Listen up.”

Aquarius: The 12 days of Xmas. So much I got to get done. I’m going to do this, then this, and then, I’m going shopping, just a quick dash to the mall. Best of intentions in Aquarius-Land. Best. Of. Intentions. Phrased, punctuated like that? I’m sure you can see where this is going, right down the drain. Best of intentions and good wishes? I admire your fortitude. I admire you, in general, me, liking Aquarius and all, but no, that’s not what this is about. It’s about distractions. Tangents, distractions, and better ideas. Wait, I have another idea, wait, this one is better!

Around we go, in circles, getting nowhere fast.

To stop the holiday madness in Aquarius, with Aquarius, encircling Aquarius? Stop. Take the big problem, and look at the littlest portion you can fix. Fix that one piece, a single particle of the problem. One little step at a time.

Pisces: Last week, I walked up to the teller machine. Not far, but I did follow my usual circuitous route, not a direct line, but entertaining enough for me. There was a big, cement block, fresh stone, grout and no teller machine in the side of the building. I’d be upset, but it wasn’t that big of a deal. Change. Change is underfoot, and something, someone is going to reroute your usual Pisces material. Means you’re going to get where you were going only to find out the destination is moved. I’m guessing that the new teller machine is now nearby, in a bank building, where it is both safe from prying eyes, and sheltered from inclement weather.

Change, adapt to the new location, the new change. Change? It’s sometimes good for the Pisces soul. Or, since it was a walking trip for me, good for my soles.

Aries: It’s a matter of knowing the right moves. I stopped, it was a sultry winter afternoon in South Texas, and we stopped at an out-of-the-way place for some late supper. Middle of the afternoon, sun was still low in the December sky. TexMex sounded good, the place advertised itself thusly, and from looking around, a small bar at one corner, and little window to a kitchen, the smell of masa and hot flour tortillas on the grill, seemed about right.

Glancing at the menu, the best item was “variations on theme,” as it was a traditional “fajita” platter, and as it turned out, probably best, and safest, food for a gringo like me. On top of the heap of seared, steaming flesh, mostly skirt steak, there was a giant pepper. I cut it in two, then helped myself to half, expecting a mild “winter” jalapeño. It was rather hot. Food was good, but we ordered the safest thing on the menu. All about knowing the right moves. Ordering meat, might be mystery meat, but ordering prepared in way that cooks it to death? All about knowing the right moves, Aries. As a Sagittarius, popping that pepper in my mouth? Not a right move.

Taurus: The global “search and replace” is perhaps one of the most amazing tools in our computer era. The ability to change a phrase, a section, an offending piece of code, globally, like, all over, say, a website or single document, or, in one example, I can replace all instances of a single phrase across a series of documents. Would that life was like that, no?

There’s a single issue, item, problem. The solution is global “search and replace,” or, for that one special Taurus? It’s global, “Search and erase.” The problem being, in real life, unlike on my computers and phones and whatnot, there is no universal command to do all the dirty work. Start at one end, don’t lose track, and gradually, this task can be corrected. It’s up to a Taurus to do this, but it looks like it has to be done “by hand,” the old-fashioned way. Some mistakes can’t be corrected on a computer. With a computer.

Gemini: “I’m really chatty until I get a Red Bull, then….” I’m not sure what a Red Bull is. Not an item that falls in my world. I understand the concept, and the implied message from the Gemini. I get it, even though I don’t. As the holidays get cranked up, there’s a message for Gemini. See, the Sun and next the Moon are in Sagittarius. Opposite from your Gemini self. As such, there’s holiday spirit where you’re moving at typical Gemini speed and no one else is quite at the same pace. Not yet. Probably not this week. The trailing planets in Scorpio, that adds a little dose, an echo of an idea that you’re supposed to pay attention at work. Just for the next few days. Less time dreaming of sugar plum fairies, or whatever it is that a Gemini dreams about at Xmas time. Just pay attention at work with one of your Gemini faces.

Cancer: I watched as the cowboys pulled onto main street to run the cattle herd through “Historic Ft. Worth’s Stockyards.” Not really much of a deal, not to me. Cattle, Longhorns, especially, are smelly, tough critters with a brain the size of, well, the brains are good-sized, but the cognitive ability is negligible — at best. The cowboys are what I was looking at. Knee-high boots with soft, flexible uppers and each cowboy had on a set of spurs. Rounded, soft, gentle spurs. No points, nothing that would hurt the horse. Used to gently prod another large animal with a small brain, the horse, in one direction or another. I forget the name of those spurs, but the rowels are rounded and definitely not sharp. For prodding, not for punishment. Gently urging, not painfully pushing. With Mars opposite your sign? Gently prodding, not poking. No pain. Don’t use those instruments of pain, sharp words, spurs with sharpened points, you’ll have none of that.

Leo: Even though the Sun and so forth is in Sagittarius? Here in Leo-Land, home of the mightiest fixed-fire sign (ever), there is an unsettled quality. The cosmic pea-gravel in Scorpio is the cause. The solution, worried about the end of the world and everything? Lean close to the computer and I’ll whisper a note, the world isn’t going to end. It will keep marching on. That’s the great secret. Now, as we get closer and closer to next week’s New Moon? Pick one holiday wish.

Make it happen. That simple, you can spend part of this weekend lining up the details. You can make it happen.

Virgo: Don’t let some else rob you of your Virgo joy. There’s a simple art of misdirection. The way a stage ‘magician’ catches your eye and makes you look elsewhere while he fiddles with whatever the illusion is. The simple art of misdirection, “Wow, look AT that!” Then, in a moment’s notice, the joy is gone. Don’t let that happen. It’s the holiday season, my most common sight is cactus festooned with Xmas ornaments. Kind of a confusion, as there is a certain lack of suitable material that would suggest I live in place where a snow man would last more than a few minutes or a few hours, at best. Couple of years ago, one freeze lasted two days, but there wasn’t any real snow with it. However, I’m not worried about that. If snowmen and snow globes and other similar decorations make you happy? Enjoy! Don’t let someone else rob you of your joy. Not this holiday season.

Libra: Mars is in Capricorn and that will create some Libra tension. It’s an old trick of mine, for winter fishing, appropriated from another buddy. High-school football receivers’ gloves. They might be a pro-grade, but I’m unsure of that. Besides, the stores I shop in, the gloves are more likely to be for high-school football. The tactile, almost sticky feeling of the gloves make them excellent for fishing during the winter months. I don’t need them all the time, but every once in a while, I’ll be on lake and that will require gloves for fishing. The deal with the football receiver gloves? Tactile feedback. Delicate sense of touch. Bonus: they keep my fingers warm on those rare cold mornings on the lake. There’s a delicate touch required to navigate this week’s obstacles. Not insurmountable, just need a deft and delicate Libra hand. Think about those gloves.

Scorpio: What happens if the world doesn’t end in a few days? What then? As a good Scorpio? Don’t spend next month’s rent money on Xmas gifts, now. Think a little longer than that. There’s a mania that will grip a certain group of people, and given that Saturn (the ringed wonder boy of a planet) is in Scorpio? Your normal, Scorpio response would be non-involvement. You wouldn’t get involved with the hype and the inherent craziness that is, factually, not based in any kind of reality. I can’t even pronounce the language that the original Mayan/Aztec codex was written in, but the translation, most of the texts are missing, destroyed by invading Spaniards, so no, not really valid. As a Scorpio? Look little deeper. What if the predictions, like, remember the Harmonic Convergence? Y2K? I’m just saying, safe bet for Scorpio? Fold it over and stick it in your hip pocket. Might need that cash later, like, to found out what your chart and Saturn say when we get to 2013.