Horoscopes by the Fishing Guide to the Stars starting 2.21.2013

“It is thyself, mine own self’s better part;
Mine eye’s clear eye, my dear heart’s dearer heart;
My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope’s aim,
My sole earth’s heaven, and my heaven’s claim.”

Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors [III.ii.65-8]

As Mercury slows and starts to Retrograde in Pisces, what can be learned from Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors?

Pisces: I watched a grandmother play “peek-a-boo” with a grand-baby. Kid must’ve been all of about a year old. Grandmother would hide her face in her hands, then her hands would swing open, and it was a loud, “Boo!” Naturally, this was followed by gales of laughter from the tiny tot. The scenario, it’s an extension of a previously discussed feeling, “If I can’t see you then you can’t see me.” It’s also a logical fallacy, but never mind about fancy names for rhetoric. You see the problem? Just because the baby couldn’t see the face, that didn’t mean the grandmother wasn’t there. Just because you hide your Pisces self, that doesn’t mean that the problem isn’t still there, staring right where your face would be, if it was uncovered.

Denying that there’s a problem doesn’t make the problem go away. With the next few days? Take some kind of action, take steps to remedy the problem. Happy birthday, too.

“Boo!”

Aries: Tu quoque (Latin for: you too.) This is an attempt to justify wrong action because someone else also does it. “I may be wrong, but so are you.” Doesn’t always follow. No Aries likes to be wrong, but it does happen. The inherent problem with the planets all stacked up in Pisces?

Makes the Aries slice, the Aries influence and the Aries subconscious reach for anything that might work. “If all your friends jumped off the cliff, would you jump off the cliff, too?” Let’s spin this up for Aries, would you follow your friends and jump? I can see what happens next, “No, of course not, well, maybe, I mean if they all went over the edge, maybe it was like cliff diving, and you know, it would be OK….” It’s not okay to follow what everyone else is doing just because everyone else is doing it. The biggest challenge at this moment, this week, is to listen to the internal Aries voice, and not listen to whatever it is that everyone else is saying, doing. You might still be wrong, but trust me, it is much better to be wrong by our own assumptions than just hopping on the nearest trend like the rest of the folks.

Taurus: The full moon early next week, it leaves things for Taurus, well, for lack of better word? This week is “mushy.” I wasn’t thinking about mushy as in full of feelings and all worried or gushing with emotion, I was thinking about different definition. Mushy, like, not solid. Mushy, like mud, or water and sand, mixed together, but not firm. The opposite of rock-hard. Malleable, lacking tensile strength, clinging but not cloying. The list, I’m sure my idea is clear, as in, the idea isn’t clear.

It’s all mushy. I’m thinking, like a plate of mashed potatoes. Mushy. Instead of trying to see clearly, instead of trying to make progress against this, this mush? Instead of trying to bull your way through, as is your typical Taurus style? What I suggest, mired in the mud, as it were? Mired in the mush? Stop struggling. Instead of trying to make sense of it, why not let it be all mushy and relax. You’ll get further if you don’t struggle.

Gemini: It was 20 years ago. Maybe a little more. I remember the first time I was there. I remember details, like the seafood from the boiling pot being thrown out in front of us on a butcher paper tablecloth. I recall the waiter. Food was so good Friday night we went back Saturday night. Amusing, to me, as the same waiter was much sunburned from the previous evening. Explained that he’d been surfing that morning.

It’s a little bit of the duality along the Texas Coast, the Devil’s Elbow, the area so-named for tricky shoals, dangerous crosscurrent, and good surf. Or, to me, excellent fishing — if you know where to look. I do. However, it’s a place that’s haunted me, that restaurant’s location. Been several different brands of food, fine-dining, burger joint, BBQ, Tex-Mex, or, like it was, 20 years ago, casual coastal cuisine. I pass that one corner, once, maybe twice a year, every year, for the last 20 years. Been many different things. All of them are variations on a theme. That surfer waiter is all grown up and moved away, now. I’m still passing by. As a Gemini, there’s touchstone this week, a place, a thing, an action remembered. It’s there for a reason, that memory. I’d suggest not dismissing it.

Cancer: I adore the Texas Coast at this time of the year. The perfect season for the Texas Gulf, what winter Texans have known for dozens of years, the time between the end of the year (Xmas) and Spring Break’s official start? Best time to be along the coast. The bays are not choked with weekend fishermen, the oysters are strong and healthy, the fishing is spotty, but spirited, and it’s the best place to spend some time to gather thoughts.

Originally, I’d head down to the coast to work around this time of the year, the last of the New Year gigs, but that petered out. There’s a quiet strength in Cancer at the moment. Maybe you’re like the Winter Texans, and maybe you’ve got a line on the best place to be at this time of the year. There’s also a certain kind, well, for lack of a better way to express it? You’re going to feel like you’re a little out-of-step with whatever mainstream (thing) you follow. Being out of step, but in a comfortable place? I’d go for the out-of-step sense and be comfortable. Good place for Cancer and the Children of the Moon, this week.

The (mighty) Leo: One of the biggest lesson I’ve learned, and learned over and over again, it has to do with stepping out of the spot light to let some one else take credit for my work. As an author, this doesn’t happen frequently, but as a teacher, I see it more often.

I’ll have a star coaching student parrot my exact words, sometimes back to me, and then, that student will take credit for him or her self. The first time, it stung a little. Gradually, though, I’ve learned that it is okay to be the puppet-master rather than the puppet. It’s all about how we play with others. As the majestic and mighty Leo, as the grandest fire sign of all? There’s a special message encoded in the stars, this week: play nice with others. Someone takes credit for your work? I’d let it go. Better to be the puppet-master than getting your string yanked.

Virgo: Villains we love to hate? I can think of two, rascals, royal rascals, from Shakespeare’s canon, as villains we love to hate. Don’t look at my work, though, as I’ve over-used those two, the Scottish Play and Richard III. In both those examples the bad guys are clearly bad guys. The antagonist. The opposite of being a good guy. Still, there’s a small amount of remorse I feel when Richard’s kingdom crumbles — for the want of a horse. The other lord, he loses it all, family, friends, kingdom, all down the pipes. Shows you what happens when you don’t listen to the oracle.

Villains we love to hate. There are bad guys, then there are really bad guys. I’m thinking, this week, as an exercise, who are the villains in the Virgo life, who are the villains we love to hate?

Libra: There’s a set-up in the heavens, like bowling pins. Libra, this is a week, you have to decide, are you the pins, all set up in neat rows, waiting on that bowling ball? Or are you the bowling ball, rolling down to your destiny, which is impact. With the current Mercury in Pisces, along with Mars and the Sun, Neptune, there is old material that needs to be recovered. Previously ignored, forgotten, put off until a later date, material you don’t want to deal with at this moment. It’s here. Now. You have a choice, as a Libra, an as the focal point to this uncomfortable planetary array, you have a choice.

Scorpio: I’ve used computers all my adult life. For school, for work, for fun, I’ve used these infernal machines in every capacity. I was an early adopter for several art programs, digital image manipulation, and such. I’ve used mice, trackballs and trackpads, all with varying degrees of utility and function, and with different degrees of success. I tend to favor the Apple one-button design for my little pointer-things.

I like it simple. Electronic things, especially computer accessories, that gets attention from Scorpio. Got my Scorpio Mother a fancy, multi-function trackball, one time, it was what she wanted. Had about a dozen buttons that could be assigned various function, single click, double click, triple click, click and hold, click and let go, and the list goes on. How my mother liked it set-up? All the buttons, no matter which one of the dozen buttons, whatever button? It just clicked. Keep it simple. There’s a tendency to over-complicate matters with redundant and excessive accessory-use.

Don’t.

Don’t make this any more complex than it is. Dozen of buttons. All did one thing. That really worked well for her, Scorpio.

Sagittarius: I still own a handful of tools I used when I did mechanical work. Of them, a hammer, is the single, most important tool left. It’s specialty item or it was, as it was sheathed in a rubberized, vulcanized kind of plastic that is both hard and forgiving. The lettering on the side, which is long since worn off, used to say something about weight and the hammer’s head, which is maybe a pound of lead shot, incased in something that is then sheathed with that plastic and capped with rubber face. Perfect for hard yet gentle taps. Can’t really drive a nail, but can realign sheet metal. Can’t hit something too sharp and pointed, but can be used to gently nudge large, obstinate objects.

Specialty tools. I would use that hammer for hitting a wrench or pry bar, to get a recalcitrant part to move.

It’s a precision percussive device. You want one, this week. I cannot, with good conscience, recommend such a device. Not this week. Precision percussive is a great idea. But with Mercury? Maybe we don’t need a hammer.

“But it would work!”

And leave everything shattered.

Capricorn: I love it when this kind of energy sets up in Capricorn. Can’t make up your mind? There’s always one more problem to consider, another option that wasn’t thought about in the first place, and then, there’s the equivocation. Extenuating circumstance. Circumstances. Doesn’t matter what answer anyone comes up with, the Capricorn brian will kick into high gear and come up with variations on a theme, plausible alternative scenarios, and problems for the solutions that are proffered. There is a marked tendency to want to add one more remark to the negotiation. Always one more comment. One more clause. The position of Mercury makes it so there really is an internal Capricorn voice arguing everything. Stop. Since I can’t stop it. You’re welcome to argue with me about the argumentative voice in the Capricorn head that knows I’m wrong. Just proves my point, though.

astrofish.net/mrx.

Can’t say you weren’t warned.

Aquarius: I had a cat, special house cat, I still carry her picture on the websites, some place. She would stand at the trailer’s door, demand in that old cat way, that the door be opened for her. I’d open the door. Cold blast of February weather would roll over us. That cat would wrinkle her fur, meow and complain that I hadn’t fixed the weather then debate, I’m sure it was an internal debate, whether or not to go outside or just use the warm and equally convenient litter box inside. Out? In? Wait. Wait? Stuck in the doorway, and I would be getting progressively chillier while the cat, shod in her fur coat, had to decide. When I was younger , and when the cat was much younger, I’d just give her a shove, but by the time I was living in that trailer in South Austin, I was more mellow. I’d shiver, hear the heater kick on, and I’d plead, “In or out? You can make a decision, I know you can.” I doubt that you’ll be an Aquarius cat this next week. I suggest, though, that you’ll be like me, begging, pleading, with someone who is affected by the Mercury Retrograde pattern, “In? Out? Just pick one, they’re all good.” Helps if you do this with kindness, but that’s optional.